Chapter 7

My "Bright" Word

by Adi Da Samraj

The Divine Siddha-Method Of The Ruchira Avatar

Relationship and Association

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: I was talking to someone here the other day about certain

associations everyone has with people, with environments, and so on. This person was

wondering whether some of his old relationships would continue, now that he had become

involved in the practice in My Company. He wanted to know if these friendships would

necessarily come to an end, or if they could still continue now that he is doing sadhana as

My devotee.

I pointed out to him that many such involvements are not rightly to be regarded as

relationships. Rather, they are associations. They are (essentially) forms of your own

desire. Therefore, they are not true friendships. Such associations with people, and even

with environments and objects, enable you to indulge certain qualities of experience at will.

Even though there seems to be something there-a person, a place, a thing-in fact, you are

not truly enjoying relationship. You simply have an association that reflects your desire,

and (thereby) gives you the opportunity to indulge it, to satisfy it, to suffer it.

Associations come and go, just as desires come and go-but relationship is, in the context of

conditional existence, the living function and living condition of Conscious Existence. And,

truly, relationship has neither beginning nor end. When there is genuine relationship with

an individual, a place, a thing, an environment, it is not subject to the quality of desire.

Desire does not generate the relationship. The end of desire or a change in desire does not

bring the relationship to an end.

When relationship is discovered and lived, it never comes to an end. Its quality may change,

and there may be apparent separations in time and space-but the relationship itself is

fundamental, continuous, real. Where there is relationship, there tends to be apparent

growth, intensification, change-but the relationship itself does not come to an end.

Associations, however, come and go. Associations belong to periods of one's life, stages in

one's experience. They are functions of time, space, and desire. Therefore, when some

particular desire-or desire itself-ceases to be the point of view of conscious awareness,

then associations tend to fall apart, disappear, come to an end. But, when (by Means of My

Avataric Divine Spiritual Grace) there is most perfect "radical" self-understanding, then

there are no longer any associations at all. There is only relationship, only relatedness.

There is no separation, no separateness. And relationship is enjoyed under all

circumstances, all conditions, with all beings, in all environments.

Because people are identified with their own desires and live by the habit of association

rather than relationship, there is suffering. Because people do not become more for one

another than extensions of their own minds, their own desires, there is no relationship.

Until there is "radical" self-understanding, there is the tendency to live mere association

through desire-even with those with whom you enjoy the quality of relationship. Thus,

until there is "radical" self-understanding, all your relationships involve conflict. They are

always threatened by mere desire, mere association. You move in and out of them. You

never truly enjoy them, except in brief moments.

Where there are simply associations in the form of desire, your connections tend to

disappear, and certain relationships tend to become corrupted, destroyed, impossible at

times. But all separateness is an illusion. It is impossible for there to be any separateness.

There is no such thing. It has never occurred. There is no separately existing thing

anywhere. There is no separately existing being anywhere. There is no separate anything!

Separateness is only an impression caused by disturbance, by this compulsive contraction I

have often described. When self contraction comes to an end, when the avoidance of

relationship comes to an end, there is no "difference".

All separateness is an illusion, and all attainments are an illusion. There is no separateness,

and there is no attainment of union. The state of the traditional Yogi is as much an illusion

as the state of the ordinary person who is suffering and dying. If you are an ordinary

sufferer, you think you have become absolutely small-whereas, if you are an expansive

Yogi, you think you have become absolutely great. But, when you think you have become

great, you truly suspect that you are small. In Truth, there is only the penetration of your

search, the understanding of it-and, then, existence becomes capable of being lived Freely

and Happily.

People are busy communicating their own mind-forms, their own contracted perceptions,

rather than living from the "Point of View" of Truth. Thus, people are only, punishing one

another. Everyone causes pain for everyone else. Everyone reinforces the illusion of

separate life. Therefore, everyone is seeking. Everyone suspects "it" (whatever the

presumed goal of anyone's life may be) is somewhere else, or that "it" does not exist.

But, when there is the most perfect understanding of that entire search, then there is only

the Communication of Consciousness Itself-That Very Power, That Condition, That Is

Reality Itself-in relationship. And the ultimate form of that Communication is Satsang with

Me-the Communication, Condition, or Company of Truth. When the Presence of Reality (or

the "Bright" Conscious Light Itself) is Communicated in Satsang with Me, you are Assumed

by This Presence, Acquired by It. This Communication undermines all ordinary

assumptions-until you cease to believe them, and you become intelligent with Truth.

Apart from "radical" self-understanding, all human beings are distracted and turned in on

themselves. They appear to have been born, but they are still bent. Every human individual,

in fear of the born-condition, lives not-yet-straightened from the curve of the womb. And

all the people who surround you, since they are also in the same state, only reinforce the

fear that makes you bend and curve inward.

I Am the Man of "Radical" Understanding. I Exist and Live as the Communication of That

Which makes it possible for people to open, uncurl, be turned to relationship.

The process of restoration to Truth has been called "second birth". Until you become

capable of existence in this apparent (human) form, open in relationship, you tend to reject

the force of existence in a continuously repeated ritual activity, like vomiting. The force of

life is abandoned constantly. Even laughter is a form of this ritual abandonment. Non-

regenerative sexual activity is a form of it. Ordinary perception is a form of it. It is to throw

off, to fail to conduct, the force of life. It is unconsciousness, sleep, the refusal to be born.

And its symptom is a life that is not in relationship, that is not whole, that is full of dis-ease,

confusion. Such a life cannot function. It only forever seeks its own release as if release

from life were the goal of life.

In Satsang with Me, this rejection of the force of life, this rejection of birth, tends to become

quieted-such that, more and more, the life-form conducts the force of life rather than

rejecting it. The subtle form of the human structure is something like a Sphere, in Which

the Current of natural life-energy (and also of the Divine Spirit-Energy) continually

descends in the frontal line, and. then turns at the bodily base and. ascends in the spinal

line. In Satsang with Me, that Current is not rejected-It is conducted.

The force of life rounds the heart, like the planets round the Sun. And the True Divine Heart

Is the "Sun" of the living human form. The Fullness that people begin to feel in Satsang with

Me is this Circle of natural life-force (and, eventually, also My Avatarically Self-Transmitted

Divine Spirit-Energy), allowed to be conducted in descent (down the frontal line), and

allowed to be conducted in ascent (up the spinal line). When that Fullness is felt, there is no

more rejection (or "ritual vomiting") of the Current of Energy. Rather, by means of

spontaneous "conductivity", the Current (of natural life-energy and, in the case of My by-Me

Spiritually-Initiated devotees, of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Spirit-Energy) is

turned and re-turned-in a spherical Cycle that is completely at ease, without dilemma.

When (by Means of My Avataric Divine Spiritual Grace) the "Sun", the Living Heart of

Reality, the Divine Conscious Light That Is the Self-Condition (and Source-Condition) of all

of this, is Most Perfectly Realized, That is most perfect "radical" self-understanding, Most

Perfect Divine Self-Realization. From That "Point of View", all of this is Obvious.

The religious and Spiritual traditions communicate various aspects of this phenomenon of

"second birth". The religious search, particularly the form of seeking that is characteristic

of Westerners, is a strategic effort to receive the Spirit, to receive the Power of the Divine,

and to bring the Grace of this Power down into life.

The traditional Eastern seeker-and, in general, the practitioner of Spirituality-is sensitive to

the ascending movement of Energy. Traditional Yoga is a ritualization of this process of

strategic ascent to the Divine just as traditional religion is the strategic ritual means for

becoming at ease, receptive, full of the Divine.

But these two-East and West-are simply modes of exclusive (and ritualized) attachment to

one or the other of the two principal aspects of this Real Process, or "second birth". Thus,

the East is traditionally very busy with the ascending Power, knowing little of descent-and

the West is traditionally very busy with the descending Power, knowing little of ascent. And

both East and West approach this "second birth" in the seeker's mode.

The "second birth" truly is a possibility. It is the only Real possibility for human beings. And

its Process is most perfectly enacted only in Satsang with Me-in the living, present-time,

devotional (and, in due course, Spiritual) relationship to Me, the One Who Is the True

Divine Heart Itself. Not someone who only suggests the Heart Itself, who has (at some time)

merely experienced It, who merely envisions It, who only thinks about it, or who only

teaches about it-but the One Who Is the True (and Living) Divine Heart, without any

limitations whatsoever.

I Am That One. When My devotee lives the conditions Given by Me, in the context of Satsang

with Me, then the Circle of descent and ascent is restored-in a very simple, natural manner.

As My devotee, you need not apply yourself methodically to the generation of that Circle, to

the strategic restoration of that pattern of Energy. As My devotee, living Satsang with Me as

the Condition of your very existence, you do not exercise any kind of strategic approach,

nor do you engage any of the remedial methods of conventional religion and conventional

Spirituality. My devotee's practice is to live the Condition of this devotional (and, in due

course, Spiritual) relationship to Me.

My true devotee is not distracted. by any form of the religious or Spiritual search-whether

the search to "be filled" by the descending Spirit-Energy or the search to "escape upward"

by means of the ascending Spirit-Energy. My true devotee turns simply to Me-and is

(thereby) turned to the Real condition of life, which is relationship. As My devotee, you

pass through various forms of crisis, until there is spontaneous insight into (or

understanding of) the ordinary pattern of your life, which is the avoidance of relationship.

By Means of My Avataric Divine Spiritual Grace, the direct observation of this pattern

becomes "radical" self-understanding. And Most Perfect Realization of such "radical" self-

understanding is Absolute Truth.

The Real Spiritual process alive in Satsang with Me involves no problematic concern

relative to the reception of My Avataric Divine Spirit-Baptism. The process in My Avataric

Divine Spiritual Company is generated and maintained by the Spontaneous and Intelligent

Siddhi (or Real Spiritual Power) of the "Sun", the True Divine Heart-Which Is Reality Itself.

My devotee is not engaged in a strategic (or ego-based) process of (downward) reception

of Divine Blessing, or of (upward) return to the Divine Source, or of both. My devotee

abides simply in relationship with Me-and the Primary Intensity of My Divine Heart-Light,

the Conscious Spirit Power that proceeds in Satsang with Me, is the entire Means for the

crisis in consciousness (or self-understanding) that must occur in My devotee.

In the meantime, there may be secondary phenomena associated with Satsang with Me-and

these are the effects of My Avatarically Self-Transmitted Divine Spirit-Current, in Its Flow

through the descending and ascending arcs of the Circle. But all such phenomena are

purely secondary. They are simply conditional enjoyments. Like right diet, they are not (in

and of themselves) Truth. If you are distracted by such phenomena, then you contract (and

thereby separate yourself) from all forms of relationship.

Only relationship is appropriate. There is no need to be concerned with the effects of the

Descent or the Ascent of My Divine Spirit-Power. There is no need to seek My Divine Spirit-

Power or to grasp It. All such concerns are an expression of the root-dilemma.

DEVOTEE: What is it about the experience of this Force (or Light) that causes people to

reject It? Is the experience itself painful? Or is it somehow threatening?

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It is not so much that the forms of rejection are an effect of

something else. They are the action. The rejection (or reaction) is spontaneous. It is the

self-contraction. But its basis is subtle-preceding life, thought, and perception. The

perceiver and the perception are already bent. They are (themselves) this rejection. They

are already forms of the root-dilemma.

The true answer to any question is always prior to words, not able to be spoken. Indeed,

even the question itself (if it is true, or real) is prior to words. The question that is phrased

in the form of concepts is not the real question. Your real question is the sensation of self-

contraction that motivates your thoughts and words. The answer, likewise, is not in the

form of concepts. The only true (or real) answer is the direct observation and

understanding of the root-activity that is your real question, your suffering, your dilemma,

the motivation of your search. Nothing else can satisfy. No explanation is equal to this

direct self-understanding.

There is a sense in which the entire process of rejection (or the avoidance of relationship)

is a spontaneous reaction to the action that is conditionally manifested existence. Wherever

there is an action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There is the True Divine Heart

(or Reality Itself), there is conditionally manifested appearance, and there is the self-

contraction that is the reaction to that appearance. People are living as that reaction. When

My devotees turn to Me, and (in that turning) observe and understand their own activity

(which is their suffering), then (by Means of My Avataric Divine Spiritual Grace) they

Realize the True Nature of Consciousness As the Living Divine Heart Itself-Which is Always

Already Open, Which is Prior to conditional manifestation, Which is not any form of

dilemma.

The genuine roots of your suffering, your disturbance, are not truly explainable in any

conceptual terms. They can only be undermined (or obviated) by means of the self-

understanding that becomes possible in Satsang with Me. Therefore, moment to moment

(whole bodily) turning to Me (thereby allowing self-observation and self-understanding to

take place) is the root process of sadhana, the spontaneous and intelligent process of

Satsang with Me.

There is no "second birth" apart from Real Spiritual practice in My Avataric Divine

Company. There is no "second birth" apart from Satsang with Me, actual moment to

moment living of the heart-relationship to Me-the Divinely Self-Realized Siddha Guru, the

Avatarically Self-Manifested Incarnation of the True Divine Heart Itself. The form and

function Given (by Means of My Avataric Divine Grace) to human beings for living this

Satsang is the direct relationship to Me-the One Who Lives As the Very Divine Heart Itself,

the One and Only (and Self Evidently Divine) Reality.

When people realize that they are suffering, that they are bent, that there is a root-

dilemma, then they begin to seek. The only places where it is possible to seek are the gross,

subtle, and causal dimensions of existence, which account for the entire structure of

conditionally manifested life. Therefore, people go about the business of alternating

between exploitation and discipline-until they realize the failure of the search. When that

realization occurs, they have become capable of Satsang with Me.

DEVOTEE: Is it necessary for us to have a True and Conscious relationship with You and

with everyone we know if we want to live a True Spiritual life, a life of understanding?

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: It would only be nicer! If it were necessary as a precondition,

then Satsang with Me could not take place. If this process depended on people already

enjoying the relationship with Me Consciously, perfectly, then the process would never

begin. it is certainly a positive sign when the process becomes Conscious, when you begin

to move into the natural "conductivity" of Satsang with Me, when you begin to live Its True

quality, Its in-depth quality. But such is not required as a precondition.

There are no conditions for relationship. It is already the case. Some are conscious of it, and

some are not. In some cases, you may enjoy the Real condition of relationship with another,

while (to that other) you serve only as a form of association (and, thus, an extension of

desire). And the opposite may also be true. When there is such an apparent discrepancy,

you must decide whether you have the strength or the interest to live that relationship,

whether you should release that relationship or (otherwise) change the quality or the

conditions of that relationship.

DEVOTEE: Do we have a responsibility to make the other person in a relationship more

conscious?

AVATAR ADI DA SAMRAJ: That responsibility is inherent in relationship itself. The very fact

of living in that direct, relational manner, rather than in the usual self-contracted manner,

is (itself) a means to serve the communication of True intelligence. Therefore, that

responsibility is already satisfied by the simple fact of living the relationship itself. It is not

necessary to add to that relational force any secondary motivation to change the other

person. When such motivations appear, your relationships tend to become an extension of

your own search. To that degree, you fall back into association again. But, when you live

relationship with other beings, you even extend and serve the form of Satsang with Me

because that form is heart-relationship to Me.

CHAPTER 8

Meditation and Satsang

FRANKLIN: Spiritual life is Satsang. It is the company of Truth. It is a relationship to one

who lives as Truth. Satsang is also the very nature of life. It is the form of existence.

Relationship. Not independence, not separation, but relationship. So the principle of true

life is relationship.

All attempts to relieve the life of suffering by various means, remedies, do not produce

Truth. They may heal dis-ease. But only Truth produces Truth. Sadhana or spiritual

practice is to live Satsang as the condition of life forever. Sadhana is not something you do

temporarily until you get free. It is to live Satsang forever. A lifetime of Truth.

The beginnings of ones spiritual life are the coming into relationship with the Guru-living in

his company, which is Satsang, living the conditions created in that relationship. Getting

straight. There is a force, a Siddhi, or spiritual power alive in Satsang. The earliest

experiences of spiritual life are generally the sensations of force or presence communicated

in Satsang. These are enjoyed as various feelings, peace, kriyas (spontaneous purifying

movements), bliss, a sense of presence, the qualities of energy. But, in truth, spiritual life is

not something that happens to you. It is not a process that takes place independent of your

conscious existence. If it did, all you would need do would be to wait for it to come to an

end in liberation, or some such state. Spiritual life is conscious life. It doesn't really exist

until your consciousness comes into play, becomes active. Spiritual life is an intelligent

process. It is not a kind of mediumship, wherein you simply enjoy certain experiences,

certain energies, a certain shakti. The shakti or force aspect of spiritual life has one

purpose. It is to communicate to you the energy alive in the Truth, to purify, harmonize and

intensify your life, so this conscious process can begin. All of the shakti experiences are

simply means created to strengthen and intensify your life so that you have the energy, the

force with which to live this conscious life. Sadhana is a process in consciousness. It is

intensity. It is force of consciousness. It is intelligent. It is not just energy that you witness.

Consciousness does not happen to you.

All of you here tonight have begun to live Satsang. To some degree, you are committed to it.

You have begun to live it as the condition of life. Some of you have these experiences of

force, of energy, of movement, internal awarenesses, various kinds of purification. In some

cases, Satsang appears simply as a very practical influence. But now it is time to begin to

use this teaching which brought most of you here. I want to read you a couple of pieces

from The Knee of Listening , from the very beginning of that portion called "The Process of

Real Meditation." It is a long section. It gets into many of the subtleties of this affair of

"enquiry." I am only interested in getting into the very beginnings of it here, because the

beginnings of it are the practical affair which is the foundation and unending circumstance

of real or spiritual life.

"The usual meditation" (traditional meditation, the motivated remedy) "is only a

consolation, an effect and a good feeling. It provides no radical reversal of ordinary

consciousness, and when situations arise out of meditation the person has no control over

the process of identification, differentiation and desire."

I spent years with all kinds of people who were going through the phenomena of yoga, of

kundalini yoga, dealing with presence, force, miraculous spiritual experiences. I have never

seen anyone fundamentally changed by these experiences. I was never thus changed by any

of these experiences. Their intention is not to change you. They are change. They are

phenomena only. They depend on the force, Guru-Shakti, the force aspect of Satsang. The

phenomena themselves are not the point. They are there only to assist in the intensification

of the quality of your life. You are not intended forever to sit in them, bathe in them and

watch them perform. These phenomena, if they need to happen in you at all, will happen in

any case. They are a relatively minor aspect of spiritual life. Enjoy them. But see that they

are not themselves spiritual life. They will not lead to liberation. They are not Truth. They

will not affect the motivating character or source of your peculiar life one iota. Thirty years

of shakti experiences will occupy a fool, but they will not awaken him. Increase of energy or

experience does nothing whatsoever to the fundamental quality of conscious life. At most it

intensifies it, providing the functional strength, so that conscious life can begin as a real

process.

"Only radical understanding avails." (In other words no motivated process, no simple

influence of energy does.) "Only radical understanding avails. It is the viewpoint of reality

itself. It is not attachment to some body, realm or experience that is seen as the alternative,

remedy, cure and source of victory. It knows that every motive and action is made of

avoidance. Thus, it has no recourse except to understand. And understanding as well as the

one who understands, are Reality, the Self, the Bright.

"The yogic search only enjoys forms of shakti, the bliss of energy. Only radical knowledge is

real bliss, dependent on nothing.

"Understanding arises when there are true hearing and self-observation in relationship."

"Relationship" here is, ultimately, a reference to Satsang. Satsang is the relationship to the

man of understanding, or the Guru, lived, made the condition of life. A person begins to

become stronger, straighter, under those conditions. Perhaps some of these phenomena,

this energy, this shakti, become awake in him, perform certain purifying activities, intensify

him. And after a while he begins to listen . At first there is simply the contact with his Guru.

When he becomes strong, more intense, he begins to listen to what is spoken in Satsang.

And after a while he also begins to hear what is spoken. At first he only listens, and what is

said modifies his mentality in various ways. But at some point he begins to hear. The

communication takes place in fact. And the sign of its having taken place is that it takes the

form of spontaneous self-observation. So, understanding arises when there are "true

hearing and self-observation in relationship."

"Therefore, make use of such teachings as this present one and observe yourself in life.

Observe yourself when you seek. Observe yourself when you suffer to any degree. Observe

your motives. Observe the activity of identification. Observe the activity of differentiation.

Observe the activity of desire. Observe the patterns of your existence."

Self-observation under all conditions is the beginning of this process in consciousness.

I was talking with one of you today, and it was asked whether it was appropriate for

someone simply to begin this enquiry "Avoiding relationship?" as it is described in The

Knee of Listening . Right now, reading the book, why not just begin it? But this intelligence

that is understanding is a form of Satsang. It is Satsang in another peculiar form. This

enquiry is Satsang. It is that same condition that we enjoy in the relationship to the Guru,

but only in another form. Just so, there are subtle forms of this enquiry, in which no mental

enquiry takes place. But it is the same enquiry, and it is still Satsang. And perfect

understanding is itself Satsang, perfectly realized and enjoyed. It never comes to an end. It

is perfect enquiry-enquiry going on eternally, absolutely. At some point this verbal or

mental enquiry becomes appropriate. But it is only one of the stages in a process. This form

of enquiry is necessarily preceded by insight. It must first be made alive as intelligence, as

real re-cognition in your own case. Then, instead of simply observing the quality of your

life, you will begin to enquire of the quality of your life. A more or less passive quality in

consciousness is replaced by a more or less active quality. But that actual enquiry, asking of

this question ("Avoiding relationship?") in a more or less formal way, is not appropriate at

the beginning in most cases. Satsang must begin, the influence of Satsang, the condition of

Satsang must begin. You must begin to adapt to Satsang, make it your sadhana, meet the

conditions of spiritual life in a very simple way, take on the qualities of an ordinary

pleasurable life, assume responsibility for the relationship that is Satsang. And begin to

listen.

You will simply begin to listen, and you will simply begin to hear. When you begin to hear,

when this process in consciousness has begun, you will begin to observe yourself, see

yourself under the conditions of life. This process of self-observation, carried on here in our

discussions about this contraction or avoidance of relationship, and in all your study,

reading and living of this work, at some point becomes communication received, real

observation of how, yes! this contraction, this avoidance is the quality of your life.

Therefore, this process of self-observation as the result of hearing in Satsang, of living in

Satsang, is the beginning of this process that becomes enquiry. Enquiry is not a method any

more than Satsang is a method. Enquiry at some point is the natural, spontaneous,

intelligent activity of one who is living Satsang. But first he must hear and observe. Yes?

"When you see that you are always seeking, understanding is emerging. When you see the

pattern of Narcissus as all your motives, all your acts, all your seeking, understanding is

emerging. When you see you are always suffering, understanding is emerging. When you

see that every moment is a process in dilemma, understanding is emerging. When you see

that every moment is a process of identification, differentiation and desire, understanding

is emerging. When you see that every moment, when you are at your best as well as when

you are at your worst, you are only avoiding relationship, then you understand. When you

see that which already is, apart from the avoidance of relationship, which already absorbs

consciousness prior to the whole dilemma, motivation and activity of avoidance, then you

have finally understood."

So this process of self-observation in Satsang, which is a result of hearing in relationship to

the man of understanding, grows and becomes insight, actual living intelligence.

"When you have understood" (when this insight has become real) "understanding will

become the natural response of your intelligence to any experience, the total content of any

moment. Then approach every moment with understanding, and perceive the original truth

within it. Devote some time in the morning and evening to conscious understanding. Sit

down, turn to understanding, and enquire of yourself as thoughts, feelings, and movements

arise within to distract you. Enquire in the form of understanding: Avoiding relationship?"

When this insight has developed as a result of self-observation, initiated through hearing,

under the conditions of Satsang, this enquiry, which is then a form of the intelligence

already alive in you, becomes appropriate. And a practical way to enjoy this intelligent

activity is simply to set aside some time for it. Morning and evening is convenient. When

you get up in the morning, that is convenient. Just before bed, that is convenient. Any time

is all right. But such times are appropriate and convenient.

"Do this for a half hour or an hour in the morning and evening, when you rise from sleep or

just before retiring. Do it also briefly at any moment in the day when strong distractions

absorb you. Devote yourself to understanding in the midst of all experience, instead of any

kind of remedial action that arises as a way to handle the problem of life at any moment.

"Make understanding and enquiry your radical approach to life. Become more and more

absorbed in understanding and the cognition of present freedom. Understand and enquire,

until these things become realized permanently as your form. Enjoy and create according

to the wisdom of your own form."

The last two lines refer to the radical, most subtle forms of this process of enquiry. Yes?

A number of people have asked me about this enquiry, "Avoiding relationship?" Some of

them want to use it immediately, simply because they read about it in the book. Some

started to use it and found it very troublesome and problematic. Some started to use it as a

"method." But the only genuine use of it depends upon its having come into existence in

you, as your intelligence, which is a very different thing from reading it in a book. The

enquiry depends on Satsang. It depends on making Satsang into radical spiritual practice,

true sadhana, your way of life, the very condition of your life.

Enjoy the quality of Satsang, the force of it, until you become free enough, so alive with the

intensity of that force that you begin to listen, which is to become spontaneously available

to the intelligence of Satsang. Then you will begin to hear what is said or otherwise

communicated. All of this will take place in you and become self-observation. When this

self-observation that is spontaneously awakening in you continues under all conditions of

life, you will begin to observe this contraction of which I speak. You will begin to see this

avoidance of relationship. It will become clear to you in your living experience. When it has

become clear to you, when it takes place as a certainty, as your very knowledge, then that

very knowledge can be used positively, directly. It becomes your approach to life. It is your

intelligence. At that point, this enquiry begins. Examine this chapter on meditation in The

Knee of Listening . See what is involved in the beginnings of it.

Our work is not the exclusive kundalini yoga. It is the all-inclusive, universal and perfect

way of God. Many of you have begun to become sensitive to the energy, the force, the shakti

of this work. And no doubt about it, there is a living force in Satsang. This work is not

simply an intellectual or mental liberation. The force alive in Satsang is the very force of the

Heart, the living Reality. But it is not unconscious. It is conscious. And the way is conscious.

True sadhana is an intense, forceful way of consciousness. So it is not a matter of forever

receiving the blessing or darshan of shakti and allowing it to do things to you. Begin to

listen. Accept the conditions of this relationship. Remove the ordinary obstacles. Abandon

them. If you truly engage and use this relationship from day to day, more obstacles and

more demands will be created for you than you could ever have imagined as a discipline for

yourself. The relationship will discipline you. You don't have to be concerned with spiritual

techniques, purifying methods, things to do to yourself, apart from the responsibilities for

practical maintenance of life which were discussed with you when you entered the Ashram.

As you make Satsang the condition of your life in a very practical way, you will begin to

listen. You will begin to hear, and you will begin to observe your own action, even your

most subtle action. The real process of enquiry rests upon all of that. Therefore, a great deal

is required of a man before this enquiry comes into play. It is not a method. It is not a form

of morbid self-analysis. It is a form of real, living, spontaneous intelligence. It is itself

already understanding, the force of Truth. So it simply does not arise as an option for you,

as something of use to you, until it has come alive. First there must be Satsang and this

activity in consciousness.

Listen! There is this contraction, this avoidance. All men are living this avoidance of

relationship. That is all anyone is doing. Nothing else is happening. Only this contraction of

living and subtle forms. It is suffering. It creates by implication the notions men have about

the very nature of life. This contraction implies a separate self, separate from the world and

all other beings. The appearance of many, much and separate me is an expression of our

suffering, but the force, the intensity, the bliss of Reality persists and is felt even under the

conditions of ignorance. Therefore, it appears as the drama of desire, the search for union

between the separate me and the manyness. Every mans life is the drama necessitated by

this fundamental contraction. Every mans life is the adventure he is playing on this

contraction. Every mans life is bullshit! The drama of an ordinary life is without

significance, or real intensity. It is deadly ignorance. No Truth, no Satsang.

Satsang must begin. Satsang must be enjoyed as the condition of life. Then the whole drama

of which even traditional spirituality is a manifestation comes to an end, dies. This

contraction becomes flabby and opens. The real force of conscious existence comes into

play and becomes the way, the sadhana itself.

Meditation is not something that takes place in the dilemma. Real meditation is not a

method to get rid of your suffering. It is not perpetual preoccupation with your own

thoughts, the content of your life, in order to get free of them, get aside from them, make

them be quiet. The you who does all that is itself the dilemma. It knows nothing. It is itself

the suffering. It is itself obsession with the endless stream of its own thought. Therefore,

the attempts by such a one to do something about his "mind," to make it quiet, to make it

see visions, whatever, are within the form of this original motivating dilemma. Such

strategies are expressions of his separate life, attempts to fortify and save his separate life,

which is already an illusion.

Real meditation arises only in Satsang, only under the conditions of Truth, already lived.

There is force in such meditation. Real meditation is an intense fire. It is a marvelous

intelligence, a brilliance, a genius, a living force. It is not a pious attempt to quiet your little

thoughts. It blasts the hell out of these thoughts! From the point of view of the Self, the

Truth, the Real, there is no concern for all of these thoughts, all of these dilemmas, all of this

mediocrity of suffering. It is nothing.

When Satsang lives as the principle of your life, and Truth becomes the form of your

meditation, it consumes thought. It is a presence under which thoughts cannot survive. It is

an intelligence that needs only to look at some obstruction for it to dissolve. This is the

process that comes awake in Satsang, not some method, some remedy. The whole point of

view of dis-ease is false. Spiritual life is not a cure. Spiritual life is the life of Truth, Satsang.

One who is looking for a cure is obsessed with his disease.

The first true thing a man does when he comes into contact with his Guru is to relax the

obsession with his dis-ease, his trouble. Therefore, the original activity a man enjoys in

relation to his Guru is not this sophisticated meditation, this enquiry. What he does is

nothing very sophisticated at all. He comes and relaxes his search. He begins to find himself

in the condition of Truth, in Satsang. He begins to enjoy that condition in a very practical

way, enjoying the force of it, the intensity of it, the beauty of it, the blissfulness and

happiness of it. Only then does he begin to hear, observe and become intelligent,

sophisticated. Yes? So the "beginnings" of Satsang may last for a very long time.

The more a man persists in the drama of his resistance, the longer he prevents Satsang. If a

man comes into association with one who he suspects might be alive, functioning as Guru,

but spends the next forty years wondering about it, he has never entered into Satsang.

Satsang is not simply coming into a room and sitting. Satsang is the relationship itself, the

relationship to the Heart, the Self, the Guru, the paradoxical person of the man of

understanding. The drama of the avoidance of relationship to the Guru is the paradigm, the

epitome, the archetype of all the dramas played in all relationships. It is better if, upon

meeting his Guru, a man surrenders his search and enters suddenly into that relationship.

But in most cases there is a period of time, of drama, of wondering, of in and out, of yes and

no, of wondering again, of thinking, none of which is spiritual life. None of that has anything

to do with spiritual life. It is only the drama of suffering, resistance, reluctance. Spiritual life

begins for a man or woman when that relationship openly becomes the condition of his life.

Then he becomes willing to accept the conditions it demands of him. He begins to enjoy the

force of that presence, that Satsang. He becomes alive, intense with that force. Then this

activity in consciousness begins to awaken.

Observe your connection here. Examine your relationship to this one. See the drama you

are playing in terms of this Satsang, and live this Satsang instead. I am only interested in

this Satsang as a real process. I have no interest whatsoever in gathering an enormous

organization of silly, fascinated people. I am concerned that this real process begins in fact,

in whomever it is possible for it to begin. If there is no one, I will stay home. If there is only

one, I will deal with one. If there are fifty, it will be fifty. If there are fifteen million, that is

fine too. But I am not willing to do what is necessary to acquire a following through

promises, methods, consolations, illusions and one-shot-liberation baloney.

Conditions are continually being created for you here. And these conditions are always

appropriate. They are the pure instruments of Self-knowledge. But if you don't live this

relationship, this Satsang, it will always be an offense to you, it will always create an

obstacle for you. Then Satsang will only make you angry and uncomfortable. Live this

Satsang, learn the real conditions of spiritual life, observe your resistance to it, be purified

of your seeking, understand and surrender this search. Lead an ordinary, pleasurable life.

Remove exaggerated, self-toxifying practices in life, all the absurdities, the forms of self-

indulgence. Become more sophisticated with your desire. Come here as often as you can.

Simply sit in this relationship, enjoy the force of it, begin to observe yourself. Ask me

questions about your sadhana. Not the usual questions: "Where is George Washington

today?" or "What is the shape of the next universe?" These are not your real questions.

What do you care about all of that? That is not the point. You are suffering only. If you have

to fly a rocket between here and Mars, then it becomes a practical necessity to discuss what

the conditions are between here and there. When you are elsewhere it is appropriate to

consider what it is like in other worlds. After death it is appropriate to examine what it is

like after death. If you are dying this evening, then we can deal with the death process. But

you are only suffering. You are resisting Satsang.

Ultimately, all of this avoidance of relationship is only the resistance to Satsang. It is the

resistance to making Satsang the condition of life. It is dramatized in relation to the Guru

because, whatever he is in Reality, he symbolizes Satsang or spiritual life. Therefore, people

feel very free to aggravate their relationship to the Guru. But they should be approaching

their own ignorance, their suffering. Come to Satsang with real need, not with anything to

defend.

The world is absolutely insane. But your spiritual life does not depend on the world. You

are not going to get up from Satsang today and suddenly find that everything and

everybody in the world is absolutely beautiful. You are not going to find that all your

suffering has been taken away by magic. The world is going to create obstacles. The world

does not want to function. People do not want to function. They are not yet alive. If you are

coming alive in Satsang, you are going to have to be intelligent in your relationships,

intelligent in life.

Require Truth. Take yourself to Satsang, the company of Truth. Don't believe the usual

company of life, of resistance, of avoidance. The world will create conditions that will

awaken your own aggravation, your own ignorance, your own game. It will demand your

game of you. It will demand that you suffer it, and that you live it as well. When a person is

still weak, still beginning, the world seems a vast alternative to his spiritual discipline and

to Truth. The patterns of sudden desire seem so much more pleasurable than this sadhana.

Therefore, especially in the beginning, a man must make good use of the company of his

Guru and his Ashram. When he becomes stronger he will also make good use of the world.

The same thing you enjoy as Satsang is itself understanding. That blissfulness of

relationship is already realization, already Truth. The more profoundly you enjoy it, the

subtler its nature appears to you. Satsang does not proceed toward a goal of Truth. Satsang

is Truth. It is the life of Truth. It is the force, the consciousness that is Truth. Over time

Truth itself produces change, apparent transformation. But Truth is the very condition of

spiritual life, not its end phenomenon. Therefore, from the moment Satsang begins, the

demand of Truth is put to a man in the form of an obstacle. If sadhana, the practice of

Satsang, were a method, some sort of means toward Truth, there would be no conditions.

Anyone could come for "initiation," regardless of his state of preparation. Then I would give

him a little technique of some sort, and flatter him with promises. No, the way is Truth

itself, the Tao is itself the way. Truth is the way. So the "initiation" of spiritual life involves

the communication of this obstacle, this demand that is Truth. The first form of that

demand is the person of the Guru. Thus, the first form of a previous spiritual encounter is

generally the life drama of his association with the Guru, the man of understanding. Even

so, it is not the Gurus function to destroy the resistance of the world by magic. If a man

responds to the teaching he must prepare himself, and make an appropriate approach to

Satsang.

The first obstacle, and the primary obstacle, to spiritual life is the relationship to the Guru.

It is also the fundamental condition, content and source of spiritual or real life. If it were

not for that, everybody could become spiritual by the mere practice of some method or

another. They would read books, they would manipulate themselves with arbitrary beliefs.

But spiritual life is a relationship, a living demand. It creates an obstacle from the very

beginning. And that obstacle provokes the crisis and fundamental sacrifice that real life

requires.

Nothing is offered but Satsang. Nothing is given but that relationship, because it is Truth.

Those who finally live it as the condition of life receive everything, because that

relationship is the medium of Truth. Everything rests on a mans ability to realize that

relationship. I know very well who lives it and who does not. It doesn't require any psychic

powers to know it. If a person lives Satsang, I live Satsang with him. With those who do not,

I must be involved to some degree in the drama of their resistance. Essentially, this

involves the application of conditions to their demands, so that the resistance in them is set

aside, broken down. Chastisement, or an apparently negative approach to someone, as you

may see in some cases here, or in your own case, is not in fact "punishment." It is a form of

Satsang, the communication of Truth. It is only that the individual involved in such a case is,

for the time being, incapable of assuming the condition of Satsang, and the responsibilities

of Truth.

DEVOTEE: Could you define the "enquiry" that you mentioned in your book The Knee of

Listening ?

FRANKLIN: I have written in the section on meditation, "enquiry" is not something for you

to do. It is not a method to achieve anything. This enquiry has no intrinsic value

whatsoever. It has only a possible functional value. It is true only when it is real, an

extension of present understanding, when the understanding of which I often speak is alive

as your own intelligence. This enquiry arises spontaneously and becomes usable entirely

apart from the search. Prior to understanding, it has no value of any kind. Until

understanding itself arises, it doesn't make any difference how you enquire, whether you

enquire, or when you enquire. It doesn't even make any difference if you ask this question

("Avoiding relationship? ") and it seems to be doing you some good. It is still some form of

narcissistic, separative, obsessive activity, a form of the search. It is functioning in dilemma.

So there is no need to define this enquiry for you, or in other words, to make it more usable.

Understanding, the Heart, this re-cognition of avoidance and contraction, is the necessary

preliminary to the use of any kind of enquiry. Understanding is a spontaneous intelligence,

arising in Satsang, in the company of the Guru. Satsang is a mans discovery, it is his

meditation, it is his highest responsibility. When the structure of Satsang, and the quality,

form and word of his Guru communicate themselves in their true form, what is called

understanding, this real intelligence, begins to grow in a very natural way. Then it becomes

appropriate to enquire, for the disciple is free of his search.

Prior to understanding, there is nothing to be perfected about the enquiry itself. Prior to

understanding, a mans only concern is Satsang. How he responds to it, how he feels about

it, all of the resistance, doubt, gravity, all of the qualities in him that are stimulated in

Satsang are his meditation. The intelligence represented in the words of the Guru, or the

Gurus approach, his form, his energy, his shakti, whatever the communication of Satsang to

which the disciple is sensitive, is the only true or radical alternative to all that the disciple

finds reflected or stimulated in himself.

DEVOTEE: When the enquiry "Avoiding relationship?" is really effective in my daily life, it

arises spontaneously. Sometimes it takes the form of an internal mentalization of the

question "Avoiding relationship?" At other times it seems to be only a process of

intelligence or spontaneous movement of consciousness itself. In other words, sometimes it

arises as intelligence itself, and at other times I find myself using the internal mentalization

of the idea, the mental enquiry. Why are there appearances of different qualities of

enquiry? I have an idea about this. Perhaps it is that, when I am distracted more, the

internal mentalization serves to bring me back to the present, to what I am up to, and

serves to dissolve the tendency to distraction of mind.

FRANKLIN: This enquiry ("Avoiding relationship?") is in the form of a re-cognition or

knowing again of ordinary activity, but its also an extension of something much subtler

than mind and life. Its an extension of that very intelligence that already is re-cognition. So

there is a form of this enquiry that is speechless, mindless, thoughtless, imageless, and yet

also an intense form of activity. That is why I have said that enquiry rests on prior

understanding or intelligence. If understanding is not alive, enquiry is nonsense. But when

this intelligence is alive, then it is the enquiry. When you are sensitive to this re-cognition,

this force of intelligence, then you are free to let it live, either as a mental enquiry at this

moment, or as a silent re-cognition of mind or mentalization itself.

Real meditation is begun by sitting in Satsang, here with me, at home alone, or even while

active under ordinary, functional conditions of life. In that conscious condition that is

Satsang a kind of quieting arises, and, at the same time, an intensification of your self-

awareness. Depending on the peculiar quality of your state at that time, you will become

attentive to forms of desire, differentiation, or identification. Impulses are the form of

desires. Thought, or separation of things that arise, is the form of differentiation. The

various forms of separate and separative self sense are the form of identification.

Therefore, when various of these qualities begin to draw your attention, this enquiry may

begin. And, generally it begins as an internal or mental verbalization. The enquiry

("Avoiding relationship?") is evoked randomly, not repetitively, but as a real question, and

followed until there is a real answer. And the "answer" is not itself a thought, but a

spontaneous re-cognition of thought, of action, of the forms of identification, differentiation

and desire. When enquiry truly arises, founded in prior insight, then the very forms and

processes that have attracted attention tend to fall away. They cease to distract you. And

you simply, spontaneously fall into the condition of relationship, which is always already

the case, prior to the obscuring activity of the avoidance of relationship. In this same sitting,

you may proceed through various forms. At first forms of desire, perception, awareness of

life-activity. Then the process may move into subtler forms. Forms of thought, forms of

impression, memory, images. Then it may move into the various subtle senses of

separation, the qualities of self sense. All the time, this verbal enquiry, randomly activated,

adapts to the various qualities that are arising. But in the depth of consciousness, there

begins to arise a sense of what is always taking place at any and every moment of enquiry.

It appears as a kind of "shape" in consciousness. A subtle activity begins to form an

impression and then a direct comprehension in consciousness. Then the mental form of

enquiry tends to fall away. Instead of mental enquiry, this other activity that has always

taken place at every moment of enquiry begins to move into every instant of awareness. It

moves in terms of the same processes that were arising before, including forms of desire,

thought, and separate self sense, but without mental verbalization. Then, in each moment,

these qualities vanish, as they did when enquiry was mentalized.

At first, what is enjoyed in this whole process of enquiry is a kind of intensity in

relationship, a sense of relationship with great intensity. But the subtler this process

becomes, the more there tends to arise a re-cognition that the only thing that is ever

happening in every instant is a modification of the very Reality that exists. Every impulse,

every desire, every thought, every sense, every sense of separate self, all of these begin to

appear as one activity, a continuous modification, a shaping of what is, of That which is also

ones own Nature or Condition. This is the subtlest form of re-cognition. And no sense of

limited or qualified relationship exists in this re-cognition at last. The very point in space

by which one approaches everything, this separate self sense, is seen, felt and known to be

a modification, an arbitrary shaping of ones own existence. Wherever this "shape," this

contraction, this modification, this formation of awareness is re-cognized, it is obviated. It

is disappeared in the instant of re-cognition, until there is absolute, perfect enjoyment of

That which underlies all of this activity. At last only It is enjoyed, only It is lived. And that is

called Self-realization, Liberation, Nirvana, all those names.

There are various traditional forms of dhyan, or meditation. But perfect, absolute, radical

understanding is the most intense, the endless or eternal Form of meditation. When that

meditation is itself perfect, radical, absolute, when re-cognition has become total, when

every thing has been re-cognized, so that nothing arises in consciousness that is not at the

very same instant already re-cognized, when regardless of the condition that arises,

regardless of the activity that is performed, whether one is sitting as if in meditation, or

walking, or performing ordinary activity, the Real Form is only obvious, when re-cognition

is constant, this is the fundamental state. This is true Samadhi, Sahaja Samadhi, constant

realization of ones true state prior to all conditions in the worlds. This true Samadhi or

realization is not itself an experience, a kind of trance or any kind of "yogic" state. It is only

enjoyment of and as that Reality which one has always been, and which all things are. One

who simply enjoys and lives this enjoyment is to be called a "man of understanding." In him

true spiritual life has begun . He lives in the Heart, at the "foot" of Amrita Nadi, the Form of

God. And when such a one moves into association with other beings, he begins to speak in

very strange ways about the nature of life.

All men are only seeking, all are involved in this peculiar activity, the avoidance of

relationship, and all are pursuing an answer in the forms of their present experience.

Therefore, men want a truth that consoles their humanity. But very Truth has nothing

whatever to do with human identity, limited to what presently appears. From the point of

view of Truth, this birth is an obsession, unnecessary, already non-existent. But men want

to hear about birth and reincarnation, experience and after-life, fulfillment and fascinating

creativity. Truth is the most radical penetration of this whole event. And only at that

moment is there happiness. Until then, every thought, every thought, regard less of its

content, is in the form of dilemma. You can be thinking, "Ice Cream Cone," or, "Run Spot,

run," and you may imagine, because of the content of your thoughts, particularly if they are

"good" thoughts, that everything is all right. But all thought is in the form of a dilemma for

one who does not understand.

Observe the entire content of an instant of thinking. Not just its apparent content, the

"sentence," concept or image you have in mind, but the entire event, including your

involvement with the thought, your relationship to the thought and the tendencies created

by the thought, the tendencies created by thinking itself. Apart from Truth all thought is

dilemma. The quality of thought is dilemma. The quality of ordinary life is dilemma. Apart

from radical understanding or real meditation, life is only suffering, search, endless self-

creation, endless qualification of the Force that is Reality. Every thought is "shape."

DEVOTEE: Suppose you are sitting, looking at a very beautiful lake. You are sitting by a

lake, and you are looking at it, and you are thinking it is a very beautiful lake. What would

be the dilemma about that?

FRANKLIN: As I have said, the content of the experience is apparently only delicious. But

witness this entire event. No one has ever been utterly relieved in the presence of a lake! If

you were to become truly sensitive to the current of your ordinary awareness, you would

find yourself getting angry in gardens, terrified on vacation! It is only that you are

chronically unaware of the nature of your own event.

What is occurring in this moment by the lake? Sitting, looking at the lake. It seems to be

very beautiful. But it seems only beautiful because you are thinking of it in contrast to other

experiences. You have been very busy, harried, distracted, demanded, frustrated, and so

you go and you sit in the country. You create an interval, to eliminate the conditions of all

these things that ordinarily distract you. You sit in the country, and you relax. You feel a

little vital, psychosomatic peace. This sitting in the country by a lake, and all things like it,

are actually forms of traditional practice. This seemingly natural repose is actually a

sophisticated practice of meditation. There is a long and ancient tradition for it. We could

justifiably claim that "a lake in the country" is as fixed and formal an object of meditation as

the "Our Father," the "Name of Ram," or "Om Mani Padme Hum." As you spend your several

days in the country, that first moment of ease into distraction begins to disappear in the

currents of usual awareness. And you begin to become sensitive to all kinds of movements

within. Thoughts, feelings, sensations, desires, demands, frustrations. When the power to

distract is lost, neither mantra, sexual beauty nor country lake can remove from you the

pain of ordinary existence. It is the same with those who sit with me in Satsang. Nothing

apparently is going on. It is a nice room. It is very quiet here, generally attractive. But you

can sit here, in Satsang, and go through the most incredible internal drama. And where

does all of that come from? It is not created by the room. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it

is not so good. Good trip, bad trip. Just so, in the country. In a matter of time we pass from

rest and return to the same internal self-revelation. If you were forced to remain in the

country and it became your condition rather than your distraction, you would find out that

you are disturbed, still disturbed. Then your search goes on in the country, as everywhere

else. You discover that the very condition of being someone looking at a lake is a form of

suffering. It is a symbol for Narcissus. Compared to running away from a shotgun, perhaps

it seems like pleasure. But if you examine the content of experiencing itself, even at ease

and pleasure, every instant is this shaping or limitation of the fundamental sense of

existence. There is the creation in consciousness of the separate self sense (this "me"

watching the lake), of differentiating thought ("lake" is different from "city," different from

"shotgun") and desire ("Oh my, this forever"). Consider all the various desires awakened on

vacation! What is disturbing men (and all men are disturbed, regardless of their relative

condition) is not simply their external condition, or their present experience. What is

disturbing is their human condition, their birth. You are disturbed by the fact that you are

sitting here, that you are alive in some separate sense, in a world of conditions. This is the

disturbance. And as long as that condition exists in consciousness, there is suffering. That is

the suffering. You can change the images, you can change the apparent conditions, you can

"change" the world. You can go from here to another world, another condition. You can go

into another state while alive, a drug state, a yogic state, a different house, a different

country, a place in the country. You can modify all the conditions, external and internal, but

you will never change the essential condition that is your suffering. Only the man of

understanding is always already free.

What are men like on vacation? What are people like who are sitting in the country? Most

of the time they are obnoxious! All these people on vacation, who are all of a sudden so

terribly "fulfilled." How do they treat one another? What kind of capacity do you have for

frustration on a vacation? Practically none. There is no peculiar intelligence required to sit

by a lake and feel quiet. Any ding-dong can do that. There is no sighted person who cant

feel pleasure looking at a sunset. What is so extraordinary about that? People talk about

country, earth and vacation as if they were a real alternative to the demands of Truth.

Anybody can go down to the ocean and feel comforted. But what has that got to do with

your death? What has that got to do with your genuine state? All it has done is distract you

from your chronic state. Temporarily, distractions make you insensitive to your common

state. Vacations are for that purpose, only to desensitize and rest you for a brief period of

time. They are sleep and refreshment in life. They are not a way of life. And sitting by a lake,

or any ordinary or extraordinary distraction and pleasure, is not a way of life. Even

traditional, motivated spiritual activity is only a temporary distraction. Truth is not a

matter of any of these distractions. It is a matter of intelligence, the activity of real

intelligence. If there isn't this activity of real intelligence, you are only distracted, and you

are only suffering. Eventually, every individual begins to realize that he is only suffering.

Eventually, people realize they are fundamentally disturbed. The more sensitive you are,

the more obvious it is to you. The less sensitive you are, the more experience you require

before it becomes obvious. The more force there is in intelligence, the more obvious things

are, and the more intense is your conscious life. The less sensitive, the more distracted you

are, the more in terms of time or experience you require. But the ultimate event is the same

in every case. This intelligence, this sensitivity, this real observation of ordinary activity

arises. And that is yoga, true yoga. That is meditation. That is spiritual life. That is religion.

That is the way of Truth. Truly, there is no satisfaction in mere birth. Life is not a form of

satisfaction. Life is a form of modification and motivation. It is self-creating. It is also Self-

realizing. It is for the purpose of experiencing or dramatizing and elaborating latent

tendencies, and, by a process of radical understanding, to transcend and transform the

given drama by the grace of Truth.

People who get a little religious, or whatever, like to make all kinds of pious statements

about what this all is. But this is simply a realm of dramatized desire. Of course, all things

arise within the Truth, or within the Real, but as soon as the Truth itself becomes obvious,

"you" disappear. So this world is not itself the Truth. Truth is that real activity, that real

intelligence that is the transcendent core of all manifestation. When Truth becomes active

and alive, when this real process takes place, the whole form of motion that demands this

limited and compulsive experience, this birth, is dissolved. Thereafter, if anything arises,

humor is not lost. Therefore, the man of understanding continues to live, but with humor,

and he dies with humor.

The peculiar quality of all such men is unique. Ramana Maharshi, from the moment of his

"realization," wanted to get out of here. From that moment, he wanted nothing to do with

life. There came a certain stage in his continued existence when people surrounded him,

asked him questions, and wanted to serve him. He consented to live the function of Guru

among them, but he never wanted it to last particularly long. He was really very anxious for

his death. Not anxious in the sense of a neurotic need to die. But he was more than happy

for life to come to an end. And his death was very ordinary. It was a lot of festering and pain

and moaning and groaning. Because he understood very well what this ordinary life and

death was all about. His death was a demonstration of the nature of this common pain,

illusion, suffering. There have also been other "saintly" people whose life appeared as a

kind of flowery, miraculous pleasure. Even so, you must remember that these people also

have all died! The quality all such beings have in common is this "humor," this freedom in

the midst of conditions. And all such men demonstrated this "humor" by their lives, in

different ways, in different times, and for different people.

There is no moment of this usual birth that is not in the form of desire, of thought, and of

separate self sense. Nothing is going on but these, which are the usual qualities of man. And

none of these truly arises separately. They are a complex event, a single event. And that

event is the usual condition and limit of man. If you begin to become aware of your activity,

your state, your condition from moment to moment, you see there is nothing but this.

Nothing but desire, thought and separate self sense. The ones who are regarded by the

various traditions to have been enlightened Sages, Siddhas and Saints were those who had

become extremely sensitive to this fact. At some point, usually relatively early in life, they

became incapable of distraction and fell into their ordinary state, which is fear. When there

is no distraction, there is only fear. The great ones are those who have utterly passed

through their fear. They re- cognized it, knew it again. Other men are of the same nature as

these great ones. They are perhaps momentarily insensitive. They are capable of

distraction. And the differences between all beings and all disciples are the differences in

their capacity for distraction. The kinds and degrees of distraction to which they are

subject, and the intensity of their distraction, these are the differences. These qualities

create the differences. And the experience of individuals in this great process of Satsang is

one in which their capacity to be distracted is undermined, frustrated, turned about.

Therefore, periodically, every individual passes through a time of crisis, of great resistance

and fear. Ultimately, every disciple and devotee must go through the same process the Guru

has already gone through. Perhaps not precisely in the same apparent form, but, within the

pattern of his own conditions, that same process must occur.

Thus, spiritual life is this undermining and frustration of the capacity for distraction. That

is why spiritual life has often been described in harrowing terms. That is why the disciple

must be very responsible for the basic quantities in his life, for his relationship to his Guru,

and for the dramatization that he is tending to create as a result of this spiritual process in

the world. Spiritual life is a crisis. Therefore, spiritual life does involve discomfort at times.

When discomforts of the crises occur, this does not mean that spiritual life is failing, or that

you are not good enough for it. Crisis and discomfort must occur. The crisis or turnabout is

what it is all about. It is supposed to occur. You are supposed to suffer the purifying events.

You are supposed to encounter resistance in yourself. You are supposed to discover all

kinds of garbage in yourself. So why should there be any special resistance to it when it

occurs? There may be discomfort, and you may wish you didn't have to go through it. But

apart from that, there is no reason why you should be overwhelmed or completely

disenchanted by the fact that you are witnessing a period of intense conflict, crisis,

suffering, and disturbance. The more time you waste identifying with all of that, the less

sensitive you become to the event. Therefore, Satsang, devotion to Guru, and a loving and

intelligent approach to all of life should naturally increase in the periods of apparent

discomfort.

All of these apparently disturbed or crisis episodes in this real process of spiritual life are

themselves very intelligent, very meaningful. They have a great deal to show you. The more

capacity you have for passing through these times, the more useful they become. The man

or woman who is really using this process in himself can be passing through this crisis

almost continually, with great frequency and intensity, and yet, like a soldier on the march,

he never misses a step, he never reveals it in any peculiar, outward way. He continues to

function, and he apparently only enjoys his life. He doesn't get involved in a whole drama of

upset. But in the beginning, when a man or woman is just beginning to pass through this

kind of crisis in consciousness, there tend to be reactions and breakdowns whenever this

crisis process begins. In the beginning there is very often an emotional collapse, even a

physical collapse. There are these episodes that have an almost psychotic quality to them.

And it is during those times that the guy is wondering whether to come here or not and all

of that. But as he passes through these purifying episodes, he begins to realize how he must

function in terms of the real spiritual process.

When this event begins to arise in the mature disciple, there is always already something

familiar about it. He knows the signs, he knows what is about to occur, and he knows the

kinds of reactions that will build up. He knows that, instead of clenching his teeth and

resisting it, he should find some more work to do during that time. Instead of planning a

vacation or a binge when he sees a crisis coming, he cancels all forms of entertainment or

distraction, every thing that he would normally use to distract himself from his internal

state. He plans a lot of work for the coming days. He plans on an ordinary, functional life. He

makes good use, really good use of these episodes. The more intelligent he is, the better the

use he makes of them. The less intelligent he is, the more capable he is of distraction at that

time, the more he will look for ways to dramatize his state, and to distract himself from the

lesson that turns purification into transformation.

You must know that everything I am doing is a means to bring about this crisis. I desire this

crisis in you. I don't want it not to happen. I don't want to console you. I don't want you to

be happy in your unconsciousness. I want you to become sensitive to your actual state. I

want you to know very well what you are always up to. I want you to become capable of

seeing yourself under all kinds of conditions. I want you to see the machine of your

ordinary activity. And I want it all to collapse. I want it to come to an end. I want the death

of all of that. If that death does not occur, there will be no release, no real enjoyment for any

of you. There will just be the continual round, the self-creation of this unconscious event of

life and death that is already distracting you. I look to create the various means necessary

to serve this crisis. Because to serve this crisis is to serve understanding, to serve the joy

and true bliss of liberated realization, of radical understanding. Every instant in Satsang is

working to bring this about.

In the Buddhist tradition it is said there are three things to which the aspirant must resort.

In their language, these three are called the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha: the

Siddha-Guru (or descended spiritual Master), the Teaching (including the living spiritual

Power and the discipline), and the company or community of those who are living the

Truth. The first event that occurred in our work together was the meeting in which you and

I established a relationship. The next quality that began to be developed was the

understanding of what spiritual life is, what this relationship is, what this process is, and

what it demands. So the Guru, the Teaching, the discipline and the communication of the

spiritual power of Truth have been the things that have held our attention in the early

stages of our Ashram. In the last few months you have seen me begin more and more to

emphasize the Ashram as a living process, an activity, a responsible activity of communion

or community. I have been creating various functions, first by bringing them to life in

myself, and then passing them on as responsibilities in others. So we have been working in

the last few months to create the Sangha, the company, the community of this work.

The ordinary man is avoiding relationship in complex ways. Therefore, it is necessary, in

the midst of this work, wherein we re-cognize this avoidance, for relationship to be the

condition. There must be living, working, functional relationship. So there must be the

opportunity for those who are living Truth to live it in relation to one another, to examine

together the Teaching, and to turn as a living community to the Guru. Community is the

natural condition of all true spiritual activity.

People who are moved to approach spiritual things are generally motivated by their

illusions. They use what they gather through reading and the usual meditation to isolate

themselves further, to console themselves, to create forms of self-imagery, good feelings,

immunity, various narcissistic qualities. But I intend for this Teaching always to be

displayed in relationship, because it is only in relationship that it begins to make any sense,

that it begins to show itself. So there must be this functional confrontation between those

who are using it. That confrontation is the use of it.

Many of you have at one time or another expressed to me your feelings about organized

spirituality, organized religion, whatever. People commonly have negative and resistive

feelings toward all forms of community and human relationships. And the reason, the

ultimate root of these feelings, is the tendency towards separation itself. In a certain way

you can see that it is completely justified. There is a great deal about organized spiritual

and common life worthy to be resisted! On the other hand, Truth is manifested only in this

relational condition, and it is perceived in relationship. It is a crisis that occurs in

relationship. Therefore, the community of Truth, the community that lives this Teaching is

absolutely necessary. But what makes it a thing to resist is your lack of involvement in it,

your separation from it, your dramatized resistance to relational and community life. So the

spiritual community must be alive. Every one must be alive within it. Every one must be

active in relationship and function within it. So if you do become active, responsible, alive,

and intimate with others who are living this way, the whole sensation of resistance to so-

called "organized" spiritual life will disappear, because you will be dealing with the

problem of community only as that which it truly is: an expression of your own avoidance

of relationship. But if you do not live it, if you do not move into functional relationship with

this work, you will only see it externally. Everywhere you will only see your reasons for

separating from the Guru, the Teaching, and the Community, because you will have made it

into something without life, something worth resisting. Therefore, it is the responsibility of

those in this work to live it, to become active in it, to use it, and to become responsible for

it.

CHAPTER 9

One-Pointedness

DEVOTEE: When in Satsang, Ive started to have this experience of being drawn into some

kind of trance, almost like a sleep, and Ive been trying to deal with it, but I dont know

whether I should hold back, hold onto it or let go.

FRANKLIN: It makes no difference. Why does this experience seem to create a question in

you?

DEVOTEE: I wonder if a decision or will is required, or is it all you?

FRANKLIN: There are two things here. You have this experience that comes on you in

Satsang, and you have your search. The experience is not what you are really asking about.

What are you observing about yourself?

DEVOTEE: Well, Im trying to get the answer. Im trying to find out what to do. Im still

searching.

FRANKLIN: And what is this searching, this getting? What does this trying to find the

answer involve? What is it you are doing when you are asking these questions and

manipulating yourself? What are you up to all the time? What are you doing? You are

disturbed!

DEVOTEE: Yes!

FRANKLIN: That is the truth. Always disturbed. You come here disturbed, and you go

through some changes. Then you feel very restful. Then you start wanting to wake up, but

you also want to go back to sleep "Should I do this, should I do that?" You are disturbed!

You are asking questions. You have this dilemma. That is true. That is the whole point.

The point is not the answer to this question, not whether you should allow yourself to go

into this trance state or not. Such answers are only a response to this question. But this

question is what you are all about! It is this chronic disturbance, this dis-ease, this

contraction, this avoidance of relationship, this whole process in all its forms.

And all of this is going on while you are just sitting here! But "just sitting here" is a potent

means of making you gradually aware of your ordinary activity. That is the point, not these

experiences in themselves. The entire process is to make you aware of your ordinary state,

your ordinary activity, to see it directly, to know it, to re-cognize it, to know it again.

Understanding is the point of all this. Since understanding is the point, the experiences

themselves are not what it is all about, nor your reactions to the experiences, nor your

questions about them, nor their content, nor their interpretation. What you do about this

particular experience is no more significant than the interpretation of dreams. The having

of dreams is significant. The fact that they occur is already their meaning. That is their

significance. Their very activity, the fact that they occur—that is the process. Apart from

the process itself, it makes no difference what a dream "means." It is a process in

consciousness, having its own value. So also with the process of your experiences in

Satsang. But while this process is going on, you are disturbed. And this disturbance

manifests as endless changes in your state. You are wandering, and wondering about it. So

it begins to seem that even this simple experience, just sitting here, has become a question!

It is as if the sky were a question! But in itself it is not a question. There is no question.

"You" are the question! Your state is the quality of dilemma, of dis-ease. Your state is your

question.

The force of Satsang produces phenomena at various levels. It represents itself in many

ways. But the value of it, the ultimate purpose of it, is for you to see your own activity. If

you were not always becoming a question, always contracting, there would be nothing to

ask about these phenomena. And what is this process of becoming a question, a

fundamental dilemma? You must have listened to music through a pair of stereo speakers

or headphones. The sound appears to arise from some point in the middle of your head. If

you become very attentive to that process itself, the point of hearing seems to be generated

in the very midst of your head. If you become even more attentive, this point of "hearing"

will become the thing in which you are interested, and you wont hear the details or even

the sounds of the music anymore. The psycho-physical organism as a whole operates in

very much the same way. The functional mechanisms of perception, such as the ears, seem

to "target" phenomena. When we are weak, when we have suffered through not living these

phenomena from the point of view of Truth, we become obsessed with this point of

awareness, the target itself. We begin to identify with it. Perception or experience creates

the self, the ego, and we begin chronically to live in terms of this target as if it were the

source and center of life.

No matter what phenomena arise, you habitually manipulate them in such a way that this

target becomes the focus and apparent source or origin of your attention. This target

becomes the chronic implication of all experience. Just so, this "trance" experience arose in

your case. As usual, there was the attempt to return to the point of view of this target, to

give it all "significance," until the experience itself was lost in the dilemma. The target

became the obsession. In this way, the intensity or potency of all experience is used to

reinforce Narcissus, the sense of separate, independent self.

That target is "me," ego, but it is also a question. It is always in the form of a dilemma.

Because it is a form of contraction, a point, it is always separate, even from the phenomena

that create it! When this target becomes the obsession in consciousness, the living

phenomena of our spontaneous existence are no longer clear. If you are focused

compulsively upon the target of the sound, you cant differentiate the patterns of music any

longer, you cant enjoy the sound, you cant turn to the source of sound, you contract from it

continually. So the sense of existence as this contracted point is the dilemma. When we

speak from the point of view of self, it is always as dilemma. And when we begin to

perceive, to turn back to the spontaneous world from this point of view, everything seems

mysterious, threatening. Then every thing assumes the form or quality of a question. And

there is a continual return, folding back in on that target or point again and again, until this

activity is re-cognized, known again.

When re-cognition takes place, this "point" is seen to have no fundamental and fixed or

necessary reality. It is simply a functional means of organizing phenomena. The apparent

implication, the self, the ego, that "point," is unreal, a temporary and dependent event. It is

a secondary creation. It doesnt actually and presently exist as the form of consciousness. It

is purely a functional phenomenon, a psycho-physical habit. But this habit persists, until

there is a turnabout in consciousness, from compulsive orientation upon this point, this

target, to what is prior to that.

What is the nature of sound and of hearing prior to that target? Before there is the

avoidance of relationship, before there is this contraction, with its sensation of self, what is

the nature of consciousness? The whole psycho-physical mechanism is a mass of these

targeting agencies. From top to bottom, inside and out, the whole life-process amounts to

this sense of a point, a target, and men identify compulsively with that, so that they begin to

live from its point of view, forgetting entirely the origin of this point.

Now, Satsang is like the origination of sound. It is received by men in the ordinary way,

through this targeting mechanism, and they compulsively try to manipulate or orient

themselves in relation to the experiences of Satsang, so that they can continually regain the

sense of this point, this target, this ego. As if that were the significance of these experiences!

But when they remember they are in Satsang, when they turn to the origin of this

phenomenon of Satsang rather than upon this target of experience, something happens

quite naturally in consciousness. It is not at once illumination or perfect knowledge. It is a

spontaneous and momentary release of the separate point of view. It allows the force that

is being communicated to fill this mechanism, to harmonize it without the compulsive

contraction, the compulsive creation of this point of view. Over time, this fullness begins to

become a kind of intelligence, an effortless receptivity, a new event in consciousness that

begins to see this activity perfectly, to see this contraction as it is, as contraction.

The avoidance of relationship is a purely secondary activity that is suffering, that is

dilemma, that is not real, not itself Reality or the present and true condition. It has only a

conventional value, but no ultimate reality. One who understands begins to fall from this

compulsive activity into openness, no-contraction, and such is true Self-Knowledge. The

true "Self" or Reality is not a point, it is not the implication of experience, it has no

significance in time, it is not limited to any visible form, any form of energy or light, it is not

located in space, it has no center, and no bounds. So, Satsang is the communication of that

Truth, the force of that Truth, to those who are still living this contraction.

The virtue of Satsang is that it communicates its own nature. It makes this activity of

contraction obsolete by various means. It begins by creating in the devotee a gradual re-

cognition of his own activity, in the midst of Satsang, in the midst of the force of life, of

Truth. Therefore, temporarily, this activity goes on, this questioning, this wondering, this

self-manipulation, even while some other things are going on that are in themselves quite

natural, intelligent, or extraordinary.

What you do in Satsang is a ritual duplication of what you are always doing. You come here

already hung-up, already disturbed. This avoidance of relationship, this contraction is what

is always going on. And, we buy it! We continually buy it. I often make a fist out of my hand

to indicate this activity to you, because it shows very clearly what happens when there is

this contraction. If you curl your hand in upon itself, a sensation is created at the center of

the hand that concentrates attention. This sensation in the hand is differentiated from

every possible thing that is outside it. It becomes the center of concentration. The same

process, generated in the psycho-physical life as a whole, becomes the point of view toward

all of this, whereas it is only a functional reflection of various forces. At every level of

consciousness, the entire psycho-physical mechanism is devoted to this activity, this

curling in upon itself. This is Narcissus. And all the searches of men, all the traditional

approaches men have taken to Truth, are from this point of view, the point of view of this

dilemma, this contraction, this "ego."

Men want to know what happens after death. What happens after this sensation is

released? Nothing! They want this sensation of independent existence to survive. They

become frightened. All questions are from this "point" of view, because this is the archetype

of questions. This is the only question, this is the dilemma! This is our fundamental

experience from moment to moment. So men are suffering, they are afraid, they are self-

obsessed, they are distracted, they are unconscious, they are turned in upon themselves.

They are always turning, curling. What do you do?

I was looking at some people here earlier, while we were sitting quietly together. Some of

you are always doing something when you are only sitting. It would be amusing to put it on

rapid film. It is an incredible ritual, an endless dance, touching and examining your bodies,

creating this sensation of separate existence by every kind of nervous perception. There

are numberless tiny adjustments of the physical position, endless touching of various parts

of the body, moving of the body, creasing the body, creating little tensions in the nervous

system that concentrate attention. It is going on internally as well, with every form of

perception and thought, every possible kind of communication from the environment and

the internal functions of the psycho-physical life. This same targeting, this compulsive

contraction, goes on and on and on and on. And what do you think you do when you get up

to leave this room? Do you think that the strategy of your activity changes when you say

good morning to someone or when you walk down the street or when you go to work? This

same thing is always going on. Its an endless contraction, endless self-sensation.

Sit quietly in a chair sometime. You will observe how every moment of perception is

combined with a symbol in consciousness, a thought, an image, an interpretation, a

contraction of the field of consciousness. Always, this target is created. So men are always

"meditating," men are always tending to be "one-pointed." Every moment of life is devoted

to the creation of this "point." And this contraction ultimately becomes terminal. It becomes

psycho-physical death, because it is endlessly intensified, to the point of absolute

contraction, so there is no longer any flow of force. If I hold my hand clenched tightly in a

fist, increasing the tension, so that no blood will flow, it will eventually wither. So men are

dying of this one activity. All physical pain is a contraction. Fear is a contraction. All

emotions are contraction. All thought is a contraction of the force-field of consciousness. All

that a man ever experiences are the forms of his own contraction, this avoidance of

relationship.

So all men are like Narcissus, who sought to escape from all conditions by separating

himself from all relationships, all confrontation, who removed himself to the wilderness of

absolute isolation, so that he was left sitting nowhere by the side of a pond. What is more,

he spent the rest of his life looking into the pond, gazing at his own image, and supposing it

to be his loved-one, some other that he loved. Not only is Narcissus separate, isolated, but

he is conscious only of an illusion, perpetually. All men are just like that. There is this

avoidance of relationship, this continual contraction and meditation only upon the internal

reflection of events, this endless thinking, this endless motivation from the point of view of

the ego, the assumed "place" of perception and cognition, so that there is no real

perception, no real knowledge.

When a man looks with eyes, he sees this point. When he hears, he concentrates on this

target. When he acts, he acts from the point of view of this targeted center. He never deals

with the source of these perceptions, he never communicates with the nature of events. He

never realizes that he is not the point of perception, that he is always already one with

perception itself and all that is perceived. The origin or the "Self" of every man is not this

ego, this target, this sensation. The Self is the origin of all these sensations. The body arises

within the Self. Sound arises within the Self. Light arises within It. All things arise within It,

but the Self is not qualified, nor is there any separately existing self or thing.

In Satsang the force of this Self, this Reality, is communicated. Just as you function on many

levels, including the solid physical being, the vital energy of life, the psychic life, the

emotive or emotional life, the processes of thought and subtle cognition, just so, Satsang,

the communication of Truth, manifests on many levels. It manifests as physical, human

relationship with the man of understanding and his friends, as a force, which manifests in

many ways, vital, emotional, psychic, and the rest, as a radical condition of life, as the

communication of verbal concepts, and more. But while this communication goes on over

time, the individual begins to perceive his own activity in Satsang. Satsang does not simply

remove that activity as if by magic. It reveals that activity. So Satsang, the living of Satsang,

which is spiritual life, involves a crisis in consciousness, the crisis of consciousness.

Therefore, the activity that is our suffering is not removed by magical, external and willful

methods, but it is shown, demonstrated, eventually perceived, and finally, perfectly

understood.

Even while in Satsang, there is a kind of warfare going on in the disciple or devotee. There

is this contraction. But he is continually being drawn out of that, by the force and very

condition of Satsang, into the company of Truth. The Truth draws him, even though he

continues to contract. And the result of that tension is a dredging up in him of the

perception of his own activity, on many, many levels. It must take place on every level.

While talking with one of you today, I used the simile of a well. When a man first comes to

Satsang, he is like a dark, deep well. Way up at the top, the light comes in around the edges,

but it is black, unconscious below! When the light of the Truth shines down into it, all of

these weirdo, slithering things come climbing up the sides. All the hidden, slimy activity

begins to be disturbed, awakened, and moved into the light. Just so, every moment in

Satsang increases the necessity for responsibility in the disciple, because the force of

Satsang isnt merely a good feeling, a consolation, something smiling, happy and pleasant. It

is not magic. It is a living force, the force of Truth. This force moves into the "well," into the

human function, this circuit of descending and ascending life, and brings up the chronic

patterns of ordinary and unconscious life, revealing them at the level of the actual

conditions of life. In the midst of this real process the subtle tendencies of life are revealed

as desires, as incredible compulsions, which, even if they were known before, now seem to

become worse. The intensification of everything is the activity of Satsang. And what is there

to be intensified in the usual man, except this negative pattern, this contraction? So, of

course, there are difficulties. Real spiritual life requires everything of a person. Spiritual life

is a crisis!

One who lives in Satsang experiences many revelations of his state. Dreams become

intensified. There may be spontaneous physical movements, changes in the physical body.

Life may become burdensome at times, thoughts seem to become endless. The individual

may become disgusted with his own game. But the whole effect of this communication of

Truth over against his own tendencies is to bring about a consciousness of his own activity

or contraction on every level. Where this begins to occur, all of the hidden qualities can

escape into the light and be merged in the light of consciousness. If a man maintains

himself in Satsang through the intense and perhaps protracted periods of crisis, this whole

process appearing in him will begin to become interesting. He will cease to react to it, to

resist it, to attempt mastery over it, to do anything about it. He will live Satsang. He will

simply live this relationship and condition that is Satsang. Self-indulgence or outward

dramatization of these patterns will cease to be his motivation, because he will understand

this activity to be a purifying event.

So the true devotee lives this Satsang, enjoys this communication of Truth, sees his own

activity, and begins to know what it is. An intelligence begins to awaken in which he re-

cognizes this perfectly. But none of it is a form of magic. It is a miracle. It is a grace. It is an

absolute activity, practically unknown in the world, because the world is devoted to this

ordinary action of contraction, the avoidance of relationship. Neither the process nor the

force of Satsang is magical. It doesnt simply "come on" to you, so that you feel good, ready

to smile at everyone, as if you were on a drug. No wisdom is gained by that magic. You are

required to go through the purifying event, so that when you arrive at the point of

intelligence, where you can live these human functions from the point of view of Truth, you

have the wisdom by which to do that. If the negative effects of life were simply removed, as

if by magic, without any of your real participation, you would gradually and unconsciously

move back into the same condition. However, in general, the participation that you are

required to have in this process tends, by the force of Satsang, to be made more of an

internal than an external one. For the most part, instead of having to live through the latent

patterns of karmas of your life in the form of massive and unyielding disasters, you are

brought to live through them in ways that can at least be handled, perhaps with difficulty,

but they can be handled. Much of it takes place in dreams, in self-purifying kriyas, in

various yogic processes.

Spiritual life is a demand, it is a confrontation, it is a relationship. It is not a method you

apply to yourself. Your "self" is this contraction, and this contraction is what must be

undermined in spiritual life. Therefore, the Guru comes in human form, in living form, to

confront you and take you by the neck. He doesnt merely send down a grinning

photograph, to be reproduced with a few fairy comments for everybody to believe. The

traditional images and records of past help serve very little. At best they may help a person

move into a position where he can actually begin spiritual life. But Truth must come in a

living form, absolutely. Truth must confront a man, live him, and meditate him. It is not

your meditation that matters. Truth must meditate you. And that is the Siddhi or marvelous

process of Satsang. Even while Truth is meditating you in Satsang, you are busy doing more

of the usual to yourself, waking yourself up, putting yourself to sleep, reacting in every

possible and unconscious way to the force of Satsang, but you are being meditated.

You cannot be "meditated" by one who is not alive. Even if you believe in one who is no

longer alive in human form, you cannot provide the necessary, living means for this

meditation. Truth must come in living form, usually in the human vehicle of the Guru, the

true man of understanding. Spiritual life involves this marvelous process, this Siddhi, this

Satsang. If this Siddhi or living spiritual process is not activated, it doesnt make a damn bit

of difference what exotic or humble spiritual methods you apply to yourself, for it will

always be of the same nature. It will always amount to a form of this contraction. All of your

methods, all mantras, all yogic methods, all beliefs, all paths, all religions are extensions of

this contraction. Truth itself must become the process of life and communicate itself, create

conditions in life, and make demands, restoring the conscious participation of the

individual. Dead Gurus cant kick ass!

At the beginning, the position of the individual in relation to Satsang is relatively passive,

apparently passive. The fullness of Satsang is given to him as a grace. When this process

begins in him, it acts as an intensifier of his various internal and external activities. A

practical relationship is established with him, conditions are applied to his life, demands

are made of him. The force, the energy aspect of Satsang intensifies, wakens and fills him.

His vitality, his health, his relations with the environment, his life condition, these are the

things that are confronted first. Essentially, during that early period, he is responsible for

being in Satsang, responsible for maintaining that connection, and fulfilling the practical

demands given to him through that relationship. He is also responsible not to indulge or

dramatize externally, in life, the phenomena that are arising in him as a result of Satsang.

People dont begin to believe any of this, really, until they begin to have the experience.

They experience Satsang and the quality of spiritual life here as something very enjoyable,

profound, whatever. Then, all of a sudden, they come to that first point of crisis in this

work. An insane compulsion, almost like possession, overcomes them and seems to

demand they leave this work. They wake up one morning: "Franklin is no good, the Ashram

is no good, spiritual life is no good, none of this has anything to do with me, I should leave

and return to my previous relatively happy existence." If they are able to hold on through

one or two of these episodes, they begin to see it as their own activity, not anything that

truly reflects on this work, and they become stable again in Satsang. When this form of the

crisis is thus overcome, a new one develops, just as suddenly, and with equal force. Then

they think: "The work is good, Franklin is good, the Ashram is good, Truth is good, spiritual

life is good, but Im no good, Im not ready for it yet, Im not an old enough soul yet, Im still

full of desires, I guess Im still supposed to seek for a while." This is the crisis of self-doubt.

It is often topped off with the "observation" that "Franklin hates me." And so they want to

leave, if only for that reason! Narcissus is always a form of contraction, of separation, of

leaving. But if they are able to pass through this one, still holding on to Satsang, still

maintaining a responsible refusal to exploit this internal movement in a life drama, they

begin to settle stably into the real self-recognition that is spiritual life.

All of the great Siddhas, the realized ones, who have taught in the world, have given Satsang

to their disciples as grace. That was their essential activity and gift. They didnt come to give

a method, to give a conceptual teaching only, to create a myth, a structure for the mind,

some sort of mentality. They brought themselves. They entered into relationship with the

world, with their disciples. That relationship is the very structure and outward sign of the

process I have described. That is spiritual life. That process is spiritual life. The Siddha

"lives" his disciples. The Truth "meditates" those in Satsang, through a period of relative

passivity, until there is more experience of this actual process, more responsibility, more

consciousness. Then, at some point in time, when this insight into the usual pattern of

activity is developed and has become real, has become the actual intelligence of the

disciple, then perhaps this form of enquiry described in The Knee of Listening will develop.

But, apart from understanding, prior to the time when the real process of Satsang has

actually come alive in a man, for him to enquire of himself "Avoiding relationship?" is

neither valuable nor intelligent. You can ask yourself any question, recite any mantra, carry

on any sort of deliberate internal activity or form of concentration, and it will have neither

more nor less value than this "Avoiding relationship?" But when this Satsang has become

fruitful in you, when this intelligence is alive, when understanding already exists, then this

apparently more deliberate activity of enquiry in the form "Avoiding relationship?" may

become appropriate. Even so, as you will see, it is just an extension of the thing that the

individual is beginning to see in himself as a consequence of every moment in Satsang. The

more there is of Satsang, the more a person sees his own activity, his disturbance, until he

begins to re-cognize it, to see that there is the avoidance of relationship, this contraction.

When he knows this utterly, when this contraction is undermined in real knowledge, that

very insight is what I have called "understanding." And when that understanding is alive, it

may approach experience moment to moment as enquiry, as the conscious enforcement of

this insight itself.

So Satsang is this condition, the relationship or condition of relationship to the man of

understanding. Truth itself is communicated in Satsang. And the life of Satsang is simply to

live this relationship. It is simple enough in concept, but when you live it from day to day, it

becomes complicated. It becomes a question, a dilemma. This is because you dont in fact or

simply abide in Satsang, you dont live the condition of Satsang without qualification. You

continue to live this contraction, this avoidance of relationship. You still tend to separate

yourself from the condition of Satsang. There is this tension, this drama, this warfare in

Satsang. Periodically you see again what youve been up to, and quite spontaneously, you

fall out of this contraction into the condition of Satsang again. Periodically you catch

yourself running, contracting, moving into your own forms, so that you see it all again and

return to Satsang.

One of the earliest manifestations of Satsang in certain people are these kriyas, these

spontaneous movements of body, posture, attitude and breath. As a way of understanding

the difference between the force of Satsang and the usual state of human activity, look at

the difference between these kriyas and the kind of nervous activity that men are always

performing. Examine the usual man at "ease," with his constant picking and grabbing and

self-conscious posturing, his endless attempts to become comfortable while still

maintaining an inner feeling of confinement or entrapment. All of that is re-action to

outside or generalized forces. Such actions are always in the form of reflexive, self-directed

movements. But genuine kriyas are internally and spontaneously generated. They are

movements from within outward, not a curling inward from without. That is why these

kriyas are themselves a kind of purifier, because they tend to break or reverse compulsive

contraction. But these kriyas are not themselves profound. They are not Truth. They are

active at the level of the psycho-physical body only. There is nothing "out in the cosmos"

about them. They are evidence of a process which is restoring the nervous system to its

natural harmony and intensity.

Whatever arises as experience in the course of Satsang and its meditation is not itself the

point. Visions, subtle phenomena of all kinds are themselves only images of this "target."

They are themselves forms of contraction. They come in order to disappear! As I have said,

the man of understanding is not endlessly engaged in all kinds of occult phenomena, or

even simple internal phenomena. That whole affair has come to rest, and the force that

contains and supports all such phenomena is consciously alive in the man of

understanding. The "Light" of which all visions are only a modification is consciousness

itself. The man of understanding no longer lives from the point of view of the target in any

sense. Not this gross body, not the vital body, not the subtle body, not the subtle mind, not

the mind at all, not any form of subtlety, not any center, not any "light" body, not any

eternal body, no body! The point of view of Truth is alive in the man of understanding. It is

no longer separate. It only manifests or appears to manifest as all of these points, all of

these functions. Therefore, such a one also appears in all the ordinary forms. But wherever

the "target" tends to arise, it vanishes in him. He doesnt buy it. He doesnt act from its point

of view. He doesnt dramatize it. He doesnt believe it. He never becomes it. For him, there is

never the loss, under any conditions, of profound, direct awareness of his true nature, his

real and actual condition.

Whenever the man of understanding appears, a new function has appeared in life. The man

of understanding is not another thing to be made into a target, he is not an other ego that

has appeared to be worshipped, glorified, contained and fitted into a cult. When he appears,

a new function, a living process has become possible, which is Satsang. But, paradoxically, it

is very difficult to get anyone interested in Satsang, because men are devoted to this

process of contraction. From the point of view of the world, of the search, Truth and

Satsang are always rejected. Satsang always has only a paradoxical presence in the world,

because it always works to undermine the search. Those who truly become interested and

are capable of enduring the activity of this Satsang are those in whom the whole process of

seeking in all its forms has begun to fail in a critical way. In such people the options of the

search have begun to subside, to die. Such people have become immobile, truly desperate.

They are not necessarily about to go into a psychotic state! It can be a very "natural" and

non-clinical despair. But it is a critical failure. Such people become capable of Satsang, and

Satsang may also become their opportunity.

DEVOTEE: You have said that those who live in Satsang must be responsible not to

dramatize or act out the tendencies that are awakened and revealed in them. But I dont

think you mean they should be repressed. Would you explain it?

FRANKLIN: We are speaking of these things as they occur under the conditions of Satsang,

not in life without conscious benefit of Satsang. Prior to Satsang, an emotion, an impulse

would develop, and, under certain circumstances, you just plain did it. The point of view of

Satsang never entered into your decision or your reaction. But when you begin to live the

condition of Satsang, you have an entirely different principle of life from which to view

these phenomena. When Satsang truly becomes the condition of your life, then, as

tendencies arise, it is not a matter of repressing or suppressing them, or of doing anything

to them. They are mechanical, internal phenomena, patterns reflecting themselves in the

force of consciousness and in the body. The more a person lives Satsang and begins to

understand the activity that creates these phenomena or causes them to rush up in him, the

less he tends to identify with the phenomena themselves. Then the activity and the

patterns become only interesting to him, rather than sources of motivation. He begins to

acknowledge them to be patterns only, not "me," not something "I" must suppress, but

patterns arising, and which he is observing. The true disciple simply lives Satsang during

that time. He doesnt even become concerned with the patterns. He enjoys Satsang. If some

episode is causing him particular distress, mental or physical, he doesnt suppress it, he

does nothing to it. He scrubs a floor, washes a window, types some letters, goes to work,

has a sandwich, goes to the seashore! He doesnt get involved in that drama, either by

suppressing it or exploiting it. He does nothing about it. He enjoys Satsang! This thing that

is arising in him is only a form of contraction. It is always a form of contraction. To "buy" it,

perform it, or to suppress it is to contract further, to take on the form and point of view of

contraction, to reinforce it. But the point of view of Satsang is relationship, not avoidance.

So one who lives the condition of Satsang is already free of the stress of this contraction. He

lives and is aware beyond it, living another condition. He is already not living this

contraction, and so he has neither to exploit it nor suppress it. He is living Satsang.

Therefore, he sees this is a phenomenon only, a phenomenon that arises in Satsang, a

purifying event.

One who lives in Satsang allows the revelation of tendencies to occur as a subliminal

activity, as a display of impressions, as a sensation, but not a necessary motivation.

Regardless of the form in which it arises in him at the time, he carries on his practical

activity. He doesnt sit alone in his room, trying to keep from going out and indulging all his

desires to the point of bewilderment. No, he stands up, he goes down to the Ashram, he sits

in Satsang, he sees some friends, he goes to work, he takes himself to lifes functions, its

functional responsibilities. He can permit this thing to arise in him, without distress,

without identification, because of present Satsang. When Satsang becomes real, the actual

and present condition of your life, your relationship to these self-revealing tendencies

begins spontaneously to change. The more a man lives Satsang, the more he begins to see

how his relationship to this process is changing, how it is unnecessary to dramatize or live

the latent tendencies. Indeed, he sees that to live the arising tendencies, even the

apparently pleasurable ones, is the very strategy of suffering.

At the beginning of a persons life in this Satsang, I simply require, as a condition, that

people be responsible in certain functional and practical levels of life. There must be a

foundation for this process. Thus, when you first arrived, various practical matters were

discussed with you, including diet, your work and responsibilities, your environment and

living conditions, the relationships in your life, and the like. This is to be certain you are

willing to assume practical responsibility for an endlessly dramatized life. Those in Satsang

must be essentially responsible for the processes of money, food and sex. I do not mean

that one who enters Satsang must become a sudden saint! But when he lives it all with

some sort of practical intelligence, there is a living firmness, a foundation for this process. If

there is nothing but a hole out the bottom, every time something is thrown in, it goes out

the bottom. If you are only ready to indulge what arises in you, Satsang will only give you

more energy for it. Such people need a parent, not the Guru.

So I require people to take on real responsibilities at the practical level of life. You do not

require the absolute perception of Truth in order to moderate your diet. It is simply a

practical affair. A supportive, enjoyable diet that gives strength, keeps the body vital, keeps

the life vital, is simply a matter of intelligence. To be intelligent, you need not first realize

absolute Truth. But no one can realize Truth absolutely who has not first become

intelligent. If a person moderates and purifies his diet, then, in the primary activity of

taking food, dramatization is not taking place. If a person is carrying on some sort of

insanity, some gross craziness, in the forms of sexual indulgence, I require him to

understand something about the relational necessities of his sexual life and his creative

communication of force into the world. Then he will have some practical hold on the use of

this primary function. All of this is not in itself for ultimate reasons, but for purely practical

reasons, for the sake of the spiritual process, to prevent exhaustion of the vital life, and the

distractions of unconsciousness, weakness, disease. Just so, at the level of money and

general conditions of life, for purely practical reasons, I want each of those in Satsang to be

fundamentally responsible for his income, and the quality of his environment. All of this for

purely practical reasons, not for any idealistic reasons.

Every single thing that could possibly be dramatized is a form of contraction, of separation.

And what are these things you are concerned about "repressing"? You dont worry about

repressing or exploiting your tendency to love people, to share life with them, and help

them! There is no danger represented by that, so there is no problem about having to

repress or exploit it. What are the things you are wondering about exploiting and

repressing? They are all negative, destructive, separative tendencies. Therefore, from the

beginning, a little of that knowledge which is the principle of Satsang must be clear. A

person must have seen something about his ordinary activity, his suffering, his usual state.

When he sees that, fundamentally, his usual state is his suffering, he falls into that

relationship that is Satsang. Then all of these forms of contraction begin to lose their force.

They are undermined by relationship, whereas they are reinforced by exploitation,

suppression or repression. The more there is this intensity of relationship in Satsang, the

less force these impulses have. They begin to wind down; the clenching of the "fist"

weakens. So dont repress it. Live Satsang. And carry on a practical order of life. It is only

when you have the point of view of this contraction, this dramatization of tendencies, that

you have to be concerned with repression or exploitation. If your point of view is Satsang,

all of this is only a secondary affair, only an impulse. If you are not identical to its center, it

is not necessary to do anything about it.

Replace concern and worrying about your tendencies with some practical activity or some

pleasurable activity in the ordinary way. You must become intelligent in how you live this

life while you are busy being responsible for it. Sadhana or spiritual practice is not a matter

of living "uptight" all the time, preventing all of your craziness. You must learn how to treat

this psycho-physical entity from the point of view of real enjoyment, of relationship, of

Satsang. You must increase life-pleasure in subtle ways, through the practical enjoyment of

functional activities in relationship. This also serves to undermine that whole process of

suffering and bewilderment.

CHAPTER 10

The Path of the Great Form

DEVOTEE: Does proximity to you, closeness to your body, have any relation to the intensity

or the effects of Satsang?

FRANKLIN: What is your experience?

DEVOTEE: It doesn't seem to have that much to do with the body. It seems more to be how

much I am in felt contact with you and how open I am to you.

FRANKLIN: It all depends on the quality of your relationship. Everything is its medium,

because everything is it. The body seems to be a very potent source for some, whereas for

others the process seems to take place mainly or only in very subtle ways. Neither one is

superior to the other. A person must discover the quality of Satsang for himself.

DEVOTEE: I have two feelings or ideas about what is happening that I would like to discuss.

I have had the feeling that you were receiving uptight or bad karma and transforming it

inside yourself.

FRANKLIN: What do you think?

DEVOTEE: That's what I see, that's what I experience, but I'm not certain.

FRANKLIN: Why do you doubt it?

DEVOTEE: The other thing, after sitting with you for a little while, I seem to be observing a

pattern in myself in Satsang, and tonight I had the feeling that maybe there is a specific way

that it happens. It is somehow different every time, but there seems to be a continuity in

terms of a pattern. At least I experience it in terms of a movement up through the chakras.

Is there some sort of non-verbal instruction being communicated?

FRANKLIN: In you?

DEVOTEE: In myself, yes. Something you do and, therefore, I am also learning to do,

because I am sitting in your presence.

FRANKLIN: Many structures are used in the subtle process of Satsang, and it appears

different all the time, the experience is different from person to person, and the quality of

Satsang seems to change in the same individual from time to time. The reason there are

differences, apparent differences, is because different aspects of the mechanism are

animated or become a focus of attention at different times. In different individuals, the

obstructions, the qualities of the mechanism, are different, and so different things must

occur. If you have a head cold, you must clear out your head. If you've got an ulcer, you

must heal your stomach. In each individual there is a different structural dis-ease, and

these structures are physical, psycho-physical, psychic, subtle. Each person may observe a

characteristic activity in himself in Satsang. A particular kind of process may be

characteristic over a certain period of time, then it may change. But these experiences in

themselves are only purifying movements. Like that time when you blow your nose and

your head finally gets clear. You don't go around pointing to your sinuses for the rest of

your life, saying they are the center of Truth!

At various times, we have discussed the qualities of this structure in which we live. In

describing its various levels, I have spoken of the three primary centers. One is the region

of the solar-plexus, or the soft region of the lower body, which is the epitome of the psycho-

physical organism. It is the center or point of view of all religious activity in men, and it is

the center of all ordinary human activity. The current of the force or light of Truth moves

down into life by a process of descent into this region. But that same force or light also

ascends. The structures through which the current ascends have been described in various

traditions. The yogic traditions of India, in particular, describe the pattern of ascent

through chakras, the wheels, lotuses or centers which are the etheric and subtle

counterparts of various vital and strategic locations in the spinal structures of the physical

body. The epitome or fundamental "goal" of the ascending life is the sahasrar, that massive

area at the crown of the head, or, more properly, just above the head. It is the primary

center of all subtle activity, all "spiritual" activity.

"Spirit" means breath in the Latin. In Sanskrit the word is prana, usually translated as life,

breath or vital force. Spiritual life is the aspiring life of the vital force. The kundalini is

prana. The kundalini shakti is prana-shakti, the subtle or ascending activity of the life-force.

In the practical activity or yoga of spiritual life, the vital force ascends or is made to ascend

(by the methods of the yogi or the initiatory grace of his Guru) toward the sahasrar, the

point or region above. The yogi attempts to merge his manifest vital-force with its subtle

source above. This produces the trance or samadhi states of yoga. There are many types of

yogic meditation or contemplation, but they are all meditations of this same subtle process.

All spiritual life is simply an exploitation or realization of the ascending, aspiring aspect of

the life-force. Just as all religion is essentially a surrendering or waiting on the descending

power, whose source or nature is called "God," all yoga or spiritual life, all spiritual method,

is a contemplation, concentration, or exploitation of this subtle mechanism of the ascending

activity of that same power or vital force.

The yogi may do various things to control and harmonize the breathing process in order to

go inward and upward. To the same end, he may add strict control of sex-force, diet,

thought processes, etc. There are also various forms of concentration on the subtle centers

or chakras. Some yoga's involve the contemplation of internal, subtle sounds, or

concentration on the internal "lights" of the life-force. There are many forms of traditional

yoga that contemplate the various qualities of our subtle mechanism. The highest form of

yoga or the ascent of life is the spontaneous kundalini manifestation, in which all the classic

"spiritual" events arise spontaneously by the grace of the Guru. But the entire affair of the

ascending yoga is only one of the possible major events in this activity that is real Satsang.

The activities of descent are also a primary form of the purifying operations of Satsang.

Some who live in Satsang begin to have kriyas, spontaneous physical movements.

Breathing activity or automatic pranayama may appear in the form of sudden breathing,

fast breathing, quieting or even cessation of the breath. Internalization may come quite

naturally, then concentration, inward experiences of centers, visions, lights, sounds,

experiences of the merging of bliss. Some people may have these experiences. Others may

not have those kinds of experiences, or they may have them only occasionally, or they may

only have certain of them. These other people may experience more of the calming descent

of that same bliss and force that purifies the mind and the life of the yogi by ascent. Where

the obstructions or limiting tendencies of a man are essentially in this descending path,

then we have awakening or opening of the descended, human life, the "purification of the

navel." Where the obstructions and the tendencies lie more in the subtle or ascending path

of the same mechanism, then we have the yogic manifestations, the spiritual

manifestations. The pattern of descent and ascent is the circle or circuit of the life-force, the

true "round dance." And in the man of understanding, the conductivity of that full circle is

re-established and full, whatever stimulation's of descending and ascending activity arise

in the stages of purification.

So far we have covered two of the three major centers. There are many chakras, and there

are also many points within the descending parts of the total mechanism. The epitome of

descent is the belly, and the epitome of ascent is a point above the head. But there is a third

"place" or epitome of conscious life. It is described in the tradition of jnana or Self-

knowledge, represented by Ramana Maharshi and others. The religious traditions speak

from the point of view of "life." The esoteric, spiritual and yogic traditions speak from the

point of view of subtle "planes" of existence or "light." But the philosophical traditions of

the jnani speak from the point of view of the "causal" being or body, the seat of deep sleep,

and also of the formless state, whose epitome is in the heart, on the right side of the chest.

The physical heart of the waking and descending life is felt to the left, and the "heart

chakra" of the subtle or "dreaming" life of ascent is in the middle, but the "causal" center or

heart is on the right. The "causal" center is without light, without sound, without form,

without movement. The seat of the causal body, the formless "body" of deep sleep, is also,

when opened and conscious, the seat of the "fourth state" (beyond waking, dreaming or

sleeping) called turiya, which transcends all modification.

The yogi seeks to merge in the sahasrar, or the highest, subtlest place of light. The religious

man seeks to be full, to receive and be full of truth, life, the descending grace of God. But the

jnani, the man who resorts only to the intuitive process of Self-knowledge, tends toward

this "causal" center beyond the mind, beyond form, beyond visions, experiences. When this

causal center opens, beyond the apparent unconsciousness of sleep, the state called turiya

arises. It is a conscious state which, like a witness, transcends the three ordinary states of

waking, dreaming and sleeping.

All of the traditions that have arisen in the great search of mankind have been

communicated, whether consciously or unconsciously, from the point of view of one of

these three primary centers of conscious existence. One or more. Read the traditional texts.

Where the jnani speaks in terms of identity with the Self, the yogi, the spiritual man, speaks

in terms of union with Truth, Light, God. And the religious man, the one who surrenders to

God and serves God among men, talks about his relationship to God and his creatures. But

all three of these centers are only portions of one great mechanism that all men share, all

living beings share, all worlds share. This mechanism is duplicated in all forms, including

this manifest universe. The manifest cosmos is structured in the same manner as our own

tripartite mechanism.

But Truth itself contains and is prior to all of that. And Satsang is the company of Truth.

Satsang is not simply, then, the attempt of seekers to do various things with these three

centers or functions of manifest existence to which the traditions have paid so much

attention. The traditions always start from a low position and seek to attain their goal,

which is fullness, union, or identity. But the point of view of true spiritual life is already that

of Truth itself, not of the search, but of the enjoyment of Truth, the living of it, the present

enjoyment of it as our real condition. All real transformation that occurs within the form of

life at any level, is a manifestation of Truth, of Satsang, not of the search. When a person

moves into that association that is Satsang, and lives it as the condition of his life, he may

begin to experience curious manifestations in any of these three great or traditional forms.

So, as in the case of the questioner, there may be these experiences of the chakras, the

phenomena of the "subtle body." In others there may be another kind of experience, more

of opening, and fullness. In another it may tend to take the form of intuitive directness.

Some speak of their spiritual life in terms of "life," others speak of it in terms of "spirit" and

"light," others speak of it in terms of unqualified "being," "consciousness," or "Reality."

Even so, each of those points of view is a limitation, expressing only a portion of the

structure that is within the possibility of Truth. This is because your experiences occur only

in the areas where purification is stimulated by the obstructive presence of your peculiar

tendencies. Therefore, Satsang is the true resort of all men, regardless of their peculiar

tendencies. And very Truth and radical understanding is the necessity of all men regardless

of their experiences. Now, exactly how this mechanism of Satsang works is not clear at the

outset. Prior to its perfect realization, it cannot be grasped. It is elusive. So, as you say, you

are trying to get down to it. But if you try to discover or perform it yourself, your blood

vessels will burst. It wont happen. If you don't already live the point of view of the heart,

vital, subtle or causal, how are you going to move into it? Your point of view is in your head,

or your legs, wherever. Satsang, the company and condition of Truth, is your true resort,

and in Satsang you will find yourself falling spontaneously into the "Heart," the Heart of

Truth, which transcends the manifest realizations.

There is no real contraction. There is only that enjoyment that is Truth, what is always

already the case. The body is a process of conductivity in which the force of life moves in a

circle, descending and ascending. The center or epitome of the life aspect of this force is the

vital center in the general region of the navel. The epitome of the subtle "body" is in the

regions of the head, above the eyes, even above the head. It manifests not as life or vitality,

but as Light, unqualified Conscious Light. The modifications of most subtle, pre-cosmic

Light are everything we know as Life. The center or epitome of the prior, "causal" or

transcendent existence is the region of the "Heart," on the right side of the chest. It

manifests as very consciousness, absolute space, formless, unqualified existence, the vast

bliss. Nothing is being communicated but That which includes these three. There is nothing

but That. That is Amrita Nadi, the Great Form, the conscious, moveless spire which extends

from the Heart to the Light.

I called the most subtle region the "Bright," because it is only Light. All of life descends from

it, and returns to it in a continuous cycle, conducting it as force, becoming movement and

form. But even this Light is a reflection of the Heart, unqualified existence, just as the moon

reflects the sun. This Heart, which is the source of all light and life, and of which every thing

is the reflection, is itself without quality. But the Heart, the Light and the Life are all

included and transcended in that which is very Truth, the Great Form. Therefore, those

who come to Satsang, where the Truth, this Living Reality, is communicated, see it

manifested in them in three characteristic ways. One is in the form of movement or of life:

kriyas (spontaneous vital and physical movements), changes in the life-pattern,

experiences and circumstances at the level of life, waking phenomena. Others experience it

more in terms of subtle or dreamlike manifestations: lights, visions, dreams, sounds,

patterns internal to consciousness. Others move into the intuitive or "causal" awareness,

falling into a profound sleep at times, even moving into turiya, the "fourth state" which

transcends waking, dreaming and sleeping. But all of those phenomena are manifestations

at particular levels of the greater process that is Satsang.

Satsang is communicated from the point of view of Turiyatita. It is the ascended life of the

Heart. It is Amrita Nadi, the Form of Reality. Satsang is the very point of view of Truth, in

which all things arise as a modification. Truth, Satsang, simply manifests as these three

qualities I have described, and Truth itself, the point of view which generates the processes

of Satsang, may be said to exist as a fourth and a fifth quality. The two qualities of Truth are

transcendent and unqualified. The first and foundation quality is the Heart. It is the very

Self of Reality, enjoyed when the mind falls into its source, and the gross, subtle and causal

qualities are purified of obstruction and contraction. This is Turiya in its Perfect State. And

the fifth quality is Perfect Form, Turiyatita, beyond the fourth, ascended from the fourth. It

is the Eternal Form of the Heart, the Form of Guru, Self and God. When the Guru speaks

ecstatically of his Divine and All-Pervasive Nature he is not speaking of some egoic

magnificence, but of That which is all that is and which stands out when ego is dead.

The Truth, which is Satsang, and living the Truth, which is sadhana or real practice, make

possible the entire event of the transformation and revelation of this great mechanism. It is

alive. It is not a structure that can be blueprinted and then prescribed. Something can be

said about it, but the saying is not equivalent to the sadhana or life of Satsang. It is alive.

Just as it is very hard to control the breath once it leaves the body, just so, this incredibly

subtle mechanism, whose source and very condition is the Truth, is infinitely elusive,

absolutely elusive, paradoxical. That is why the image of the Mother Shakti and the images

of Deity in general, particularly in the Orient, have a paradoxical quality. They are almost

comical at times, and at other times they are treacherous, violent. Krishna is beautiful and

blue. But he teases those who desire him. He eludes them. He runs away, and he says "Yes,

I'm coming, I'm coming." But you wait and you wait and you wait, and he doesn't come.

The Mother Shakti appears in all kinds of forms. The holy yogi bathes his mind with

repetition of mantra until it is pure of desires, and then he walks down to bathe his body in

the Ganges. But when he gets out of the water, without his bathing suit, this fantastic

woman is standing on the beach with a basket of fruit, with chicken sandwiches, and a little

wine. The next day he has to turn in his mantra and his robe! He goes to tell his Guru how

he broke his vows. His Guru asks, "With whom?" "With that beautiful chick over there!"

says the penitent. And his Guru says, "That is the Mother Shakti. She got you!"

The image of this great process of conscious life has been symbolized as all of the

paradoxical deities, and the symbols themselves have a life. In my own experience, the

Mother Shakti has appeared like anyone else, then different, as all kinds of forms, very

strange, then beautiful, then wise. But what is being communicated through the imageries

of these experiences is this great process, only a piece at a time. It is perfectly glimpsed

only when there is resort to Truth absolutely. Otherwise a person will buy the experience

to which his tendencies gravitate. So, if you are willing to buy a little foggy light between

your eyes, then that is where you will be. Whatever you are willing to buy, you will be

given. That is why the deities are pictured in such paradoxical ways. They will give you a

little pink fruit, if you will come and take it. The dog comes for his bone, he gets the bone,

and he leaves. Thus, if you begin to get very interested in the process that is awakening in

Satsang, you may become attached to the experiences themselves. Perhaps, at some point,

you will buy it. You are already buying it. That is why this question was asked. You may

even become very angry, and reject Satsang, because of the position you are put into by

craving your own internal life. Narcissus is addicted to looking at himself. It is the only

thing he will defend.

DEVOTEE: Will you say something about how the Shakti relates to Truth?

FRANKLIN: What is called Shakti, the Divine Creative Power, is not a separate thing, not a

special force. It is the same that is meant by the Self, Reality, Truth, Guru, or God. The name

Shakti is simply used to describe that aspect of the Truth that is movement in

manifestation. Siva-Shakti is perhaps a more appropriate or complete designation of the

Truth. In other words, the Real is moving-creative, but it is also static-perfect-untouched.

The true Shakti is the Conscious Force in and as which every thing exists. It is the present

nature of every thing, of all beings, and it is also the cause, substance, support and end of all

that arises.

Now as it pertains to practical spiritual life, there are those in whom the way of

understanding or Satsang with the Guru involves a pronounced subtle purification or

transformation. The peculiar qualities of their spiritual experiences tend to arise in the

"subtle body" as opposed to the "physical, gross body," or to what is called the "causal

body," the deep well of being in which there is no form, no modification. The subtle body is

actually the range of internal functions, of inward-directed energy and awareness, of

dreams, visions and thoughts. There are many who are sensitive in that range of functions,

and whose view of the cosmic process is essentially through the subtle media. The

apparent process of their conscious life is more obviously like internal yoga and meditation

than the austere intuitions of Buddhism or Advaita Vedanta, or even the continuous

practical orientations of those in whom human activity in the world is the center of

sadhana and experience. Such people witness the specific, yogic activity of the universal

conscious force.

The force alive in yoga is called prana-shakti. It is an aspect of the universal life, the subtle

life of the Self of Truth. The Shakti in this form has a specific involvement with the internal

processes of living beings, particularly human beings. If the internal energy can be

stimulated, or if its source and path can be concentrated upon, there are internal

awarenesses and transformations of a subtle kind that arise. Ordinarily, this process is not

something over which a person has the least control. He doesn't "awaken" it himself. It is

always already there. It is just unconscious and subdued. It feeds the outward tendencies of

life. The actual process of the spontaneous kriya yoga, which I have described in The Knee

of Listening, is stimulated by contact with a living Siddha-Yogi in whom this force is

unobstructed and functioning very consciously. The contact with such a person stimulates

this energy and breaks down or purifies the inner functions of their obstructions. By virtue

of that contact, this internal process, this subtle process, becomes conscious, awakened,

and manifests itself through a series of purifying events, both internal and external. The

obstructions are broken down, perhaps on an apparently gross level at first, then always

subtler and subtler.

The first experiences such a person might have are various bodily sensations. He may feel a

certain energy, a certain heat or cold, a certain tendency to move, little jerking,

spontaneous movements, a feeling of discomfort, an intense, even erotic feeling all over the

body, or in specific regions of the body, such as the head. These purifying movements are

an automatic hatha yoga. Sometimes such a person does yogic postures spontaneously. He

cant help but do it at times. He might perform postures of which he would be physically

incapable were this force or yoga-shakti not active in him. He may perform automatic

pranayama or vigorous and curious exercises of the breathing functions. The whole process

of all that can be called "yoga," including all the types of yoga, may arise spontaneously in

that person, beginning with the more physical forms of yoga, then moving on to the subtler

purification's and the qualities of meditation. There may be times when the mind becomes

rapid, when there is endless thinking, without apparent cause, and then, just as

spontaneously, it breaks down, breaks apart, slows down. Such a one may begin to have

visions at times, and to perceive internal forms, colors, smells, tastes, sounds. He may hear

the nada, the sounds which are always vibrating within. There may be visions, symbolic

experiences, dramatic mudras or poses of hands and body, movements of all kinds, shaking

of the body, ecstasies, spontaneous devotion, love, bliss, and profound concentration in the

various psycho-physical centers, always moving toward and culminating in the primary

region of the subtle life in the crown of the head. The movement is always upward. And

since the yogic centers are subtle, not limited to the physical form, the highest subtle

centers are actually above the physical head, but the process is sensed as a concentration in

the general area of the crown. This region is called the sahasrar.

This subtle, ascending, yogic process is that which most people would identify with

"Shakti." But in fact it is a demonstration of only one path or one aspect of the greater path

of the universal and absolute activity of the true Shakti. There are essentially three paths,

forms or qualities of spiritual life, based on the three primary functional points of view. The

classic texts talk about the "knots" that need to be opened. "Liberation" is the opening of

these "knots."

There is a knot associated with the region of the navel, including the entire solar plexus and

the soft organs which extend above it (including the heart, lungs, tongue and parts of the

brain) and below it (to the anus). Some indicate its center to be just below the navel. That

entire region is the gross-vital center, the life center. There is a tradition of practice related

to this center. If you are centered or stable there, you are strong, upright, direct, straight,

active in proper relationship to things, in the proper harmony. The purification of the

"navel" or of the life itself is the imminent goal of religious devotion, and the various

harmonizing practices which are applied to life. Religion essentially looks toward life-

purification, life-stabilization, life-opening. And the life-center is its point of view. This is

the first of the three paths.

The second path is the subtle path. Such is the point of view of yoga and the various

processes that are very similar to yoga. Such are the various paths that exploit the internal

qualities rather than abandon them. The "subtle body" is conceived in terms of various

chakras or centers through which the subtle force moves. These centers culminate in the

sahasrar, the primary center of subtle life. Several of these subtle centers are described as

primary "knots" in the traditional texts. The sahasrar itself is not included among these

knots, but a primary one is just below the crown, in the midbrain, behind the eyes. When all

of these subtle centers are open, in other words when the living, inward-directed energy

moves and merges in the sahasrar (the "thousand petalled lotus"), that is the highest

realization from the point of view of the traditional ascending yoga.

The third path is one we see represented in such men as Ramana Maharshi and in the

monistic Hindu traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta. In such cases, the path is generated

from the point of view of the "causal being," the conscious seat analogous to our deep sleep

state. The gross path is analogous to our waking state, the subtle path is analogous to our

dream state, and the causal path is analogous to our deep sleep state. The paths associated

with the formlessness of the Divine or ultimate Reality are essentially forms of this causal

path. And the "knot" of the causal heart, on the right side of the chest, is the center from

which these causal paths are generated, and toward which they move by various critical

and intuitive means. When this center or knot is open, waking, dreaming and sleeping no

longer limit the primary enjoyment that is the Self or true and prior state of consciousness.

Now all three paths necessarily involve force, the Shakti or Conscious Force and Power of

the Divine, the living Reality. Christianity, an example of the religious or life path, is very

concerned with the "Holy Spirit." That is the Force, the Shakti, conceived from the point of

view of the life-knot, the vital center of the descending force, the conductor of the

descending Power of God. "Prayer," the most characteristic religious appliance, is always

looking for this descent of Power. And "fasting," the ancient companion of prayer, is the

means of purifying or preparing the "place" for the descent of Gods Grace and Power. The

worship of the Mother-Shakti in the cults of Hinduism is expressed yearning for Her to

descend, to send Her gifts downward. All religious points of view want Power to come

down. Western occultism is the worshipping of the descending Power. That is the descent

of Shakti. All movements, all of this visible world is Shakti.

The subtle path is also concerned with Shakti in a peculiar way. The subtle yoga's exploit

the capacity of prana-shakti to ascend. They do not hope for the descent of Power, but they

seek to become involved with and ultimately identified with the ascending functions of that

same Power. In that case we have the subtle process of internal movement, generated in an

inward and upward direction, toward concentration and merger in the subtle regions

above.

In the causal path there is also force. The formless Divine, the Self, Brahman, is absolute,

unqualified Force. It is only that this particular path is not associated with the kind of

"movements," this kundalini process, that are talked about from the yogic point of view.

But it is the same Force.

Ultimately, the teaching that is Truth is not generated from the point of view of any of these

three knots, or these three dilemmas, and the paths created to open or solve them. The

descending (life, gross), the ascending (subtle), and the moveless original (causal) Force

are there in all men. And each individual will tend to go through a characteristic purifying

process, according to his particular tendencies in relation to these three qualities, when he

moves into Satsang with the Siddha-Guru. The point of view of Truth is not the point of

view of dilemma, or any of the three traditional qualities of Force, or their primary centers,

or any secondary centers associated with them. No particular process of experience is

equal or identical to Truth, the Heart, the Self, or Real God.

What is necessary is the absence of obstruction, of the ego, of contraction, the avoidance of

relationship. Then only Truth stands out. Therefore, Truth is the communication from the

point of view of the true Teaching. The true Guru always turns his disciple toward Truth,

Reality, not to his experiences, not to the possibility of experiences, not to any psycho-

physical state. The gross, the subtle, and the causal, as I have spoken of them here, are

psycho-physical and temporary in nature. They are equal to the three states, waking,

dreaming, and sleeping, into which experience is analyzed in the classic texts. The higher

state than these, all the texts declare, is turiya, the fourth state. In other words, the more

fundamental state is the witness to those three states. The "witness" is not the religious

man, not the yogi, not the intuitive philosopher, but turiya, the fourth, prior to all that,

witnessing it all. And even higher than that is perfect realization, turiyatita, beyond the

fourth, unspeakable, neither formless nor formed. It is Amrita Nadi, the form of Reality,

whose Foundation and very Nature is the Heart. Therefore, Truth is not identified with any

process, any knot, any opened knot, any dilemma, any solved dilemma.

Everyone's experience in relation to the Guru is different, depending on the quality or

tendency of his conscious life. But all experience the single force of the Guru and of God as

Shaktipat, the transmission of Divine Conscious Power, the Power of Consciousness. Some

tend toward association with the descending force. The life-center and life-functions tend

to be the dimension in which they feel both obstruction and opening. Their sadhana tends

to be a life-level activity, and they become aware of the force of the Guru and of Truth as a

descending blessing, originating extremely above. Others tend more toward the internally-

directed, ascending process. Their experience is more like that of the kundalini yogis.

Others tend more toward the causal, intuitive level of spiritual knowledge. Instead of the

yogic processes or the apparently life-active, religious and devotional processes, theirs is

more a process of intuitive understanding, without special inclination to visions and the

various forms of mystical cognition.

The true Guru must live the conscious Force of Truth at all of these fundamental levels. He

must necessarily be Guru in all of them. He must be fully aware in all three paths. In him

there must be no obstruction in the descending path, no obstruction in the ascending path,

no obstruction in the moveless or intuitive path. These three "knots" are open in him. He

sees from the point of view of the Heart, unobstructed. There must be in him no

obstruction to the whole path, the complex Force of the Heart, the presence of Amrita Nadi

There are many that are called Teacher or Guru simply because they perform a consoling

or apparently beneficial function of a peculiar kind. But such are not living the great

function of Guru. They are not what I call "the man of understanding." They are teaching

from the point of view of dilemma, the knots and their paths. Generally, they teach those

who are by tendency oriented to the same quality of dilemma to which they themselves are

tending. The practical-religious-devotional type teaches those who are sensitive in this

way. The yogi type teaches those who are sensitive on a subtle level. The more

philosophical or intuitive type teaches those who are similarly inclined. But the point of

view of Truth is not dilemma, not the knots. It is not equal to any kind of experience,

solution or form of perception and cognition. Therefore, the true Guru teaches Truth as

Truth, from the point of view of Truth. Then, only secondarily, the purification or opening

of the knots occurs in the ways peculiar to individual tendencies.

So you see, spiritual life in Satsang with such a Guru manifests as many different qualities

and types of experiences. From the point of view of the Heart and the understanding of the

processes of manifest existence which I have just described, the variations are easy to

comprehend. Only when the spiritual experiences of men are looked at from the outside

and from a limited point of view do they seem disorderly. Then it seems as if there is too

much difference between people and traditions, and no single, comprehensible process

stands out. Truly, the great spiritual process is not understandable from any point of view

that is not already the Perfect Heart. Spiritual things seem confused from a point of view

that is not the Heart, just as the world seems confused from the limited point of view of

experience and circumstance.

The "Shakti" that most people have heard or read about is that force manifested and used

in the subtle process associated with what we call yoga. But the true or perfect Shakti is the

Conscious Force that is the Self, that is the Heart, that is Truth, Amrita Nadi, or very God.

And this Shakti is manifesting as all that arises or does not arise. It is the Truth, the

fundamental Reality. It is That which manifests on all levels, as the descending power, the

ascending power, the moveless power. One and the same Shakti is all of that. Therefore, in

Truth, Shakti is not limited to the subtle process with which people generally identify it. It

is greater than that, not limited to that. It does not necessarily tend to manifest the

dramatic course of the subtle process in the case of some individuals. It is the Heart Itself. It

is Truth Itself. It is Real-God, God-alive. When there is the Realization of the Self or Truth,

Perfect Understanding, there is also perfect manifestation of Shakti, perfect communication

of Shakti, because the Heart is Shakti, it is Conscious Force, it is the Fire that is Reality.

Wherever there is any sort of an opening, there is the flow of Shakti. Any person who is

open on any level, to any significant degree, is very attractive. People like to be around such

a person, because there is movement there. There is not solidity, fixation. There is a certain

energy, a liveliness with which we like to be associated. It is only that the usual liveliness of

men tends to be limited. The easiest to identify is the person who is open on a very human,

vital level. But there is also the liveliness of a subtle variety, to which we are, individually,

more or less consciously sensitive. Ultimately, we are also sensitive to the liveliness that is

Reality itself. So, there can be a man, a great saint, stone dead, whose "liveliness" remains in

the world. The burial shrine of Swami Nityananda is one of the most lively places to which I

have ever been in my life. Ultimately, our conscious sensitivity must awaken to the real,

eternal liveliness that is the very Heart or Real God. And it is perfect movement, not limited

movement.

The liveliness or Shakti of the Heart is communicated by the living Siddha-Guru. Whatever

the tendencies of the individual, it is the Satsang, or relationship with the Siddha, with the

true Guru, that is the simple condition under which the utter and complete process of Truth

may take place. All that exists is relationship. All that appears as suffering and dilemma is

contact or conscious relationship, relatively obstructed. The less obstructed any condition

or function is, the more it is a path, a flow of force. The path of Truth is the relationship to

the Siddha-Guru. It is that course or functional path established between a man and his

Guru. That is the path. The path is not the methods and strategies a man applies to himself.

Satsang, the living, active, functional relationship itself, is the "current," the "wiring" in

which the Conscious Force, the Truth, flows and manifests its activities at every level. So

the simple relationship to the man of understanding is the path. It is the place where the

search comes to an end, where the obstructions are abandoned.

There are also various activities internal to the Siddha-Guru and the realms of his

awareness, but they are not spoken. There is no point in talking about them, unless, in the

progress of Satsang, the Guru sees fit to instruct his disciple. These processes are subtler

than the mind and require equal subtlety to be understood. Even so, certain activities are

eventually observed by the disciple in contact with his Guru. There are various things the

disciple observes his Guru to do which he associates with his own awakening and with the

arising of certain experiences in him. Those activities of the Guru are not utterly

comprehended by the disciple at the time. The traditions describe these activities in terms

of effects and appearances. In India, these activities of the Guru are called Shaktipat or

Guru-kripa, the transference of the Conscious Force of the Heart or God. The effects of this

transference are observed in various enlivening activities, gross, subtle and causal. The

Guru is observed to be apparently involved in this in several possible ways: by looking at

the person, by touching him, by speaking to him, or simply by thinking of him in some way.

And the highest form of that "initiation" is where the Guru simply and silently abides as the

Self, or very Truth. Then his continuous existence as the living Reality initiates everything

that lives to Truth. All that turns to the Guru in appropriate ways is enlivened by him. And

that is initiation, that is movement, that is the beginning of the whole process of spiritual

life.

Naturally, it is on the level of life that the relationship to the Guru is perceived by the

disciple. He observes the occasional looks, occasional things said, occasional touches, the

effects of the Gurus occasional remembrance of him. When he is with his Guru he may

suddenly feel his Guru is thinking of him. Or he may simply and continuously resort to his

Gurus Presence, whether or not his Guru is considering him in particular at any moment.

These various sensations of the activity of the Guru are the apparent means, from the

disciples point of view, of the transference of the Light, the Truth, the Shakti of the living

Self or Real God. The disciple may tend, as a result of some enlivening experience generated

by his Gurus grace, to look again and again for that particular experience or that particular

form of "initiation" to be repeated. He may tend to associate some peculiar experience or

some particular activity of his Guru with Truth itself. But in fact any specific experience in

the disciple, or any specific activity of the Guru, such as looking, talking, thinking, touching,

whatever, is generated in a particular moment when it is appropriate. It is thus not a

necessary experience or action that must be repeated again and again. Different forms of

the action of initiation may be used, or no apparent action may be used. The Guru always

remains unpredictable, in order to test and mature his disciple. And, at last, simply abiding

as the Self, as the Heart, as Truth, is essentially what the Guru does for all beings. Just so,

the quality of the relationship that the disciple is living to his Guru is what determines the

nature of his present experience. The Guru does not withhold. He always lives Truth

openly. He always communicates it on many levels, to transform the expectations, the

obstructions, the tendencies, the limitations that the disciple is living to him. So the

"drama" of this relationship or Satsang is at the level of the disciple. It is he that must

understand obstructions. The Guru does not create obstructions. He only lives the Heart of

Truth. But he may dramatize or intensify the obstructions already in the disciple, in order

to make him aware of them, to draw his attention to them, so that this flow of Life can move

through, unobstructed by any particular tendency. The Guru always works so that

awareness can be lived on a more profound level.

Many things can be said about this activity to which I have been referring. It is the greatest

mystery, how the Heart lives in the world, how it functions among apparently separate,

living beings. The whole process that occurs is as complicated as the cosmos itself, and

what is beyond it. It cannot be described perfectly. Only certain things can be said about it.

Essentially, it is the very Life, the Self, very Existence, Reality, God manifesting under these

conditions, under all conditions. All the traditions, taken together, are essentially a way of

retracing the structure of manifest life back to its source. Each particular incident or

tradition does it in a limited way, from the point of view of a particular dilemma, a

particular center, a particular viewpoint of experience or consciousness. Those in whom

this drama of realization is essentially a life-process are concerned with the descending

force and the opening of life to it. They are tracing the current of descent, from the highest

to the lowest. The processes of yoga and the like, the subtle processes, trace the current of

ascent, from the lowest to the highest. These two taken together, the gross and the subtle,

form a circle. They trace that portion of the circuit of existence which descends to life and

ascends or returns again from life to its structural source. Therefore, life is always

descending-ascending. It is a circle. Then there is also the "causal" aspect or portion of this

circuit. Ramana Maharshi talks about the path that leads and even begins beyond yoga, and

which is prior to subtle and gross existence. He points to the place of the Heart, on the right

side, which is the causal center. And this center is connected to the subtle center, the

Sahasrar, by that transcendent portion of the circuit called Amrita Nadi. Thus, if the three

centers or portions of the circuit are taken together with the Form which includes them we

see the great path, the circuit of manifest and unmanifest life, the secret path of all spiritual

processes, all traditions.

The "shape" of man is like a fruit. His core is the causal being, untouched, unborn, like

waiting seed. When the fruit falls into the earth (when the mind falls into the Heart), there

springs up an inconceivable thread, of the same substance as the seed of being, which rises

above, becoming a great tree and extending even into the heights, into the sky and cosmos

of very God. This is Amrita Nadi.

Until the seed is ready for life, it is concealed in the form of the fruit. This fruit is the

dependent and not conscious form of man. It is the condition of suffering, and also of

sadhana in Satsang with the Guru. The stem of the fruit is the route of the Light and Life

which descends into the fruit from places above, from the parent tree, and at last passes

down through the sahasrar, the crown of this body or fruit. That Light and Life descends

into the fruit and makes it full and ripe below. Just so, it also ascends, thus keeping the

circuit or circle, until the fruit falls and its seed is eaten in the earth. Such is ordinary death

and in the mature devotee, also "ego" death. Ordinary death is the termination of a phase of

the outer life of the individual, but also the beginning of a new phase of the manifestation

or expansion and revelation of what he is inwardly and ultimately. Just so, a man becomes

perfectly "fruitful" only in Satsang with the Guru, who is himself the process, the goal, the

means, the Power and the very Life. Therefore, in Satsang the fruit ripens and falls into the

"earth," the foundation, and opens. Such is the Heart.

When discipleship to the Siddha-Guru is perfected, the whole circuitry is known and

understood. It is seen to be within your own real Nature or Condition, rather than to

contain you or limit you. And this is what is truly called Self-Realization, the Heart of Truth,

Nirvana, God-union. It is perpetual freedom to enjoy Satsang with the Perfect Guru. And

one who understands, even one whose understanding is Perfect doesn't necessarily

disappear from the world. Gautama Buddha, for instance, got up and walked back to town.

So it was with Jesus, and all the great Masters of men. After their return to the common life

of the world, they spent the rest of their lives trying to communicate their understanding to

all of those who felt limited by this fruit-shape, this phantom circuit of manifest existence.

And in the case of all the Siddhas, the fundamental Teaching or method was that functional

relationship or Satsang which living beings realized with them. This Satsang is the Method

of the Siddhas.

Satsang always serves to destroy or undermine the fixation of attention and its

implications. Whenever Satsang is lived, there tends to be the opening of the knots in which

attention is fixed, so that consciousness falls into its original form, which is the Self or Real

Nature. Therefore, one who has realized the ultimate end of the whole path or cycle of the

form of existence now exists "outside" of that whole process, no longer limited by it. But he

remains consciously related to this whole structure in an entirely different way than

seekers and all those who do not understand the process and form of existence. The path of

a mans experience will always return to zero, always back to the dilemma. It will always fit

him back into the fruit, like a worm. Thus, the Siddha-Guru appears in the world, to speak

from the point of view of Truth or Reality, not of experience, and to return the tendencies of

the disciple back to the essential structure in which Truth is communicated, until he sees

there is no path, no difference, no separation. And when the disciple is perfectly one with

his Guru, he sees and enjoys the true Form of his Guru, and participates directly in the

functions of his Guru, who all the time has been only the Self of the Real One.

Those who speak from the point of view of the Heart, the living Truth, are always very

radical, very eccentric in the manner of their teaching. This is because they are no longer

limited to the "path" I have described, to the point of view of dilemma, to the limiting

structures of experience. Saint Tukaram is a good example. Tukaram was a very strange

man. He grew up and lived in India, in a very traditional order of society in which religious

and spiritual life was a fixed part of the cycle of life. He participated in all of that, ritually,

religiously. He performed all the apparent externals of it, and this would seem to have

made him acceptable or ordinary. But if you read his words, you realize he was a "heretic"!

He spoke only in the most radical way.

Tukaram lived in a culture that was devotionally oriented, committed to the duality or

radical separation of God and man. But he would go around telling everybody there wasn't

any God. When he sat down, he could find no One to meditate on. He claimed that he was

himself God. He went on and on like this, disturbing all the orthodox devotees, until, one

day, he just disappeared. He had been sitting with his disciples all night, chanting, enjoying

deep meditation, when, all of a sudden, there was a blast of light, and he disappeared!

There have been a number of such cases of people who were reported to have abandoned

their life in the world by such "absorption." It is not a common form of "death," even among

the Siddhas. It happens rarely as a matter of fact. But Tukaram was a very humorous guy!

And all of those who live from that point of view are very radical, very eccentric. The

acceptable and the expected are not really a part of their communication. They are always

communicating from the Perfect point of view. For this reason, their apparent

manifestation is often very odd.

Meher Baba spent a period of his life teaching or serving the masts (pronounced "musts"), a

class of eccentric people in India who live in extraordinary but still limited states of

conscious awareness. These masts were all, from a human point of view, particularly a

Western point of view, psychotic, literally psychotic. Many of them spent their time in

catatonic states, displaying an automatic, strangely ritualistic and incomprehensible way of

life. When such individuals come into contact with a genuine Siddha-Guru they tend to

become quieter, more "normalized." The flow of the "path" tends to become more

harmonious in them. This is because the eccentricity in which such individuals are fixed is

not natural to the realized enjoyment I call the Heart. It is, rather, a form of aberration, or

exclusive fixation. Generally, it occurs in those who become more or less exclusively

involved in the ascending, internally oriented process. Such exclusive fixation disturbs the

descending process, and produces the manifestation we call psychosis. Nonetheless,

genuine Siddhas or "completed ones" also may manifest this eccentric quality, this oddity,

this radical unpredictability. This is because the Heart is absolutely radical, not identical to

any thing, any dilemma, any path or moment in the path, any quality, any experience, any

limitation whatsoever. The Heart obliterates and destroys limitation all the time. It is a

wildness! That is why the Guru is worshipped as Siva. He destroys everything. He walks

through town and burns everything. He hits people over the head. He cuts them in half.

Look at all the traditional pictures of Siva. He is always wiping everybody out, tearing their

bodies apart, and sitting on them in meditation. But all of that is a symbol for the perfect

humor of the Self! Such images are not intended to represent literal acts of God or

justifiable acts of man. They are only "meaningful." They represent meditative

comprehension of an aspect of the conscious and universal process. The representation of

this paradoxical display is intended to awaken the blissfulness of non-separation, and non-

identification with mortality.

The disciple is oriented towards his own obstruction, his own path, and so he is delivered

this process of the apparent destruction of obstructions and limitations. This causes him

discomfort. But the great remedy for that discomfort and the conscious crisis that must

occur is Satsang, the very and functional relationship to the Guru. The more the disciple

lives Satsang, knows it, enjoys it, the less he is affected by his own crisis. Then the crisis of

transformation becomes a very simple, pure, harmonious process. But the more he turns

from that condition, relationship and process which is Satsang, the more he becomes fixed

in his own obstructions. Then, when his obstructions tend to get shaken up, even broken

apart, he has only them to which he can resort, so that he feels the discomfort, prolongs the

suffering, and exaggerates his "path."

The eccentricity of the Siddhas and Saints, their radical quality, is a demonstration of the

living Nature, the Self, Real God. The formalized, fixed, predictable quality is not that of the

Heart. Rigidity is the tamasic, fixed, repetitive orientation of the limited mind. So the Real

Self, alive as the Guru, performs this eccentric display, constantly abandoning all service to

expectations. It is the Divine leela, the humor or play of freedom. It always disturbs the

fixed, unconscious quality. It creates motion, then returns to harmony, then settles into the

formless consciousness, then arises as creative Light. But whatever the display, whatever

the changes through which Guru and disciple go from day to day, whatever the change in

the display or action of the Guru, there is always one thing he continually does, which is

simply to remain as the Self, the Heart, the Very Reality or Truth. His apparent activity, his

drama, his play is always changing. He constantly builds up expectations in the disciple, and

then changes it around. He continually disturbs the fixed quality, the rigidity, the path to

which the disciple always tends.

There appears to be a certain security in fixation, but in fact it is a form of disturbance. It is

only an illusory security, because there is, in Truth, no fixed state. That is why death is such

a threat. But the more fluid, the looser, the more rapid and intense within, the more like

consciousness the disciple becomes, the less fixed, the more functional, the more

harmonious, the more like fire, the more there is of Truth and the less there is of the "path,"

the more there seems a movement in the direction of freedom. It appears to be a direction.

Perhaps we should only call it a sign. It is a sign of that which is, always and already.

CHAPTER 10

The Path of the Great Form

DEVOTEE: Does proximity to you, closeness to your body, have any relation to the intensity

or the effects of Satsang?

FRANKLIN: What is your experience?

DEVOTEE: It doesn't seem to have that much to do with the body. It seems more to be how

much I am in felt contact with you and how open I am to you.

FRANKLIN: It all depends on the quality of your relationship. Everything is its medium,

because everything is it. The body seems to be a very potent source for some, whereas for

others the process seems to take place mainly or only in very subtle ways. Neither one is

superior to the other. A person must discover the quality of Satsang for himself.

DEVOTEE: I have two feelings or ideas about what is happening that I would like to discuss.

I have had the feeling that you were receiving uptight or bad karma and transforming it

inside yourself.

FRANKLIN: What do you think?

DEVOTEE: That's what I see, that's what I experience, but I'm not certain.

FRANKLIN: Why do you doubt it?

DEVOTEE: The other thing, after sitting with you for a little while, I seem to be observing a

pattern in myself in Satsang, and tonight I had the feeling that maybe there is a specific way

that it happens. It is somehow different every time, but there seems to be a continuity in

terms of a pattern. At least I experience it in terms of a movement up through the chakras.

Is there some sort of non-verbal instruction being communicated?

FRANKLIN: In you?

DEVOTEE: In myself, yes. Something you do and, therefore, I am also learning to do,

because I am sitting in your presence.

FRANKLIN: Many structures are used in the subtle process of Satsang, and it appears

different all the time, the experience is different from person to person, and the quality of

Satsang seems to change in the same individual from time to time. The reason there are

differences, apparent differences, is because different aspects of the mechanism are

animated or become a focus of attention at different times. In different individuals, the

obstructions, the qualities of the mechanism, are different, and so different things must

occur. If you have a head cold, you must clear out your head. If you've got an ulcer, you

must heal your stomach. In each individual there is a different structural dis-ease, and

these structures are physical, psycho-physical, psychic, subtle. Each person may observe a

characteristic activity in himself in Satsang. A particular kind of process may be

characteristic over a certain period of time, then it may change. But these experiences in

themselves are only purifying movements. Like that time when you blow your nose and

your head finally gets clear. You don't go around pointing to your sinuses for the rest of

your life, saying they are the center of Truth!

At various times, we have discussed the qualities of this structure in which we live. In

describing its various levels, I have spoken of the three primary centers. One is the region

of the solar-plexus, or the soft region of the lower body, which is the epitome of the psycho-

physical organism. It is the center or point of view of all religious activity in men, and it is

the center of all ordinary human activity. The current of the force or light of Truth moves

down into life by a process of descent into this region. But that same force or light also

ascends. The structures through which the current ascends have been described in various

traditions. The yogic traditions of India, in particular, describe the pattern of ascent

through chakras, the wheels, lotuses or centers which are the etheric and subtle

counterparts of various vital and strategic locations in the spinal structures of the physical

body. The epitome or fundamental "goal" of the ascending life is the sahasrar, that massive

area at the crown of the head, or, more properly, just above the head. It is the primary

center of all subtle activity, all "spiritual" activity.

"Spirit" means breath in the Latin. In Sanskrit the word is prana, usually translated as life,

breath or vital force. Spiritual life is the aspiring life of the vital force. The kundalini is

prana. The kundalini shakti is prana-shakti, the subtle or ascending activity of the life-force.

In the practical activity or yoga of spiritual life, the vital force ascends or is made to ascend

(by the methods of the yogi or the initiatory grace of his Guru) toward the sahasrar, the

point or region above. The yogi attempts to merge his manifest vital-force with its subtle

source above. This produces the trance or samadhi states of yoga. There are many types of

yogic meditation or contemplation, but they are all meditations of this same subtle process.

All spiritual life is simply an exploitation or realization of the ascending, aspiring aspect of

the life-force. Just as all religion is essentially a surrendering or waiting on the descending

power, whose source or nature is called "God," all yoga or spiritual life, all spiritual method,

is a contemplation, concentration, or exploitation of this subtle mechanism of the ascending

activity of that same power or vital force.

The yogi may do various things to control and harmonize the breathing process in order to

go inward and upward. To the same end, he may add strict control of sex-force, diet,

thought processes, etc. There are also various forms of concentration on the subtle centers

or chakras. Some yoga's involve the contemplation of internal, subtle sounds, or

concentration on the internal "lights" of the life-force. There are many forms of traditional

yoga that contemplate the various qualities of our subtle mechanism. The highest form of

yoga or the ascent of life is the spontaneous kundalini manifestation, in which all the classic

"spiritual" events arise spontaneously by the grace of the Guru. But the entire affair of the

ascending yoga is only one of the possible major events in this activity that is real Satsang.

The activities of descent are also a primary form of the purifying operations of Satsang.

Some who live in Satsang begin to have kriyas, spontaneous physical movements.

Breathing activity or automatic pranayama may appear in the form of sudden breathing,

fast breathing, quieting or even cessation of the breath. Internalization may come quite

naturally, then concentration, inward experiences of centers, visions, lights, sounds,

experiences of the merging of bliss. Some people may have these experiences. Others may

not have those kinds of experiences, or they may have them only occasionally, or they may

only have certain of them. These other people may experience more of the calming descent

of that same bliss and force that purifies the mind and the life of the yogi by ascent. Where

the obstructions or limiting tendencies of a man are essentially in this descending path,

then we have awakening or opening of the descended, human life, the "purification of the

navel." Where the obstructions and the tendencies lie more in the subtle or ascending path

of the same mechanism, then we have the yogic manifestations, the spiritual

manifestations. The pattern of descent and ascent is the circle or circuit of the life-force, the

true "round dance." And in the man of understanding, the conductivity of that full circle is

re-established and full, whatever stimulation's of descending and ascending activity arise

in the stages of purification.

So far we have covered two of the three major centers. There are many chakras, and there

are also many points within the descending parts of the total mechanism. The epitome of

descent is the belly, and the epitome of ascent is a point above the head. But there is a third

"place" or epitome of conscious life. It is described in the tradition of jnana or Self-

knowledge, represented by Ramana Maharshi and others. The religious traditions speak

from the point of view of "life." The esoteric, spiritual and yogic traditions speak from the

point of view of subtle "planes" of existence or "light." But the philosophical traditions of

the jnani speak from the point of view of the "causal" being or body, the seat of deep sleep,

and also of the formless state, whose epitome is in the heart, on the right side of the chest.

The physical heart of the waking and descending life is felt to the left, and the "heart

chakra" of the subtle or "dreaming" life of ascent is in the middle, but the "causal" center or

heart is on the right. The "causal" center is without light, without sound, without form,

without movement. The seat of the causal body, the formless "body" of deep sleep, is also,

when opened and conscious, the seat of the "fourth state" (beyond waking, dreaming or

sleeping) called turiya, which transcends all modification.

The yogi seeks to merge in the sahasrar, or the highest, subtlest place of light. The religious

man seeks to be full, to receive and be full of truth, life, the descending grace of God. But the

jnani, the man who resorts only to the intuitive process of Self-knowledge, tends toward

this "causal" center beyond the mind, beyond form, beyond visions, experiences. When this

causal center opens, beyond the apparent unconsciousness of sleep, the state called turiya

arises. It is a conscious state which, like a witness, transcends the three ordinary states of

waking, dreaming and sleeping.

All of the traditions that have arisen in the great search of mankind have been

communicated, whether consciously or unconsciously, from the point of view of one of

these three primary centers of conscious existence. One or more. Read the traditional texts.

Where the jnani speaks in terms of identity with the Self, the yogi, the spiritual man, speaks

in terms of union with Truth, Light, God. And the religious man, the one who surrenders to

God and serves God among men, talks about his relationship to God and his creatures. But

all three of these centers are only portions of one great mechanism that all men share, all

living beings share, all worlds share. This mechanism is duplicated in all forms, including

this manifest universe. The manifest cosmos is structured in the same manner as our own

tripartite mechanism.

But Truth itself contains and is prior to all of that. And Satsang is the company of Truth.

Satsang is not simply, then, the attempt of seekers to do various things with these three

centers or functions of manifest existence to which the traditions have paid so much

attention. The traditions always start from a low position and seek to attain their goal,

which is fullness, union, or identity. But the point of view of true spiritual life is already that

of Truth itself, not of the search, but of the enjoyment of Truth, the living of it, the present

enjoyment of it as our real condition. All real transformation that occurs within the form of

life at any level, is a manifestation of Truth, of Satsang, not of the search. When a person

moves into that association that is Satsang, and lives it as the condition of his life, he may

begin to experience curious manifestations in any of these three great or traditional forms.

So, as in the case of the questioner, there may be these experiences of the chakras, the

phenomena of the "subtle body." In others there may be another kind of experience, more

of opening, and fullness. In another it may tend to take the form of intuitive directness.

Some speak of their spiritual life in terms of "life," others speak of it in terms of "spirit" and

"light," others speak of it in terms of unqualified "being," "consciousness," or "Reality."

Even so, each of those points of view is a limitation, expressing only a portion of the

structure that is within the possibility of Truth. This is because your experiences occur only

in the areas where purification is stimulated by the obstructive presence of your peculiar

tendencies. Therefore, Satsang is the true resort of all men, regardless of their peculiar

tendencies. And very Truth and radical understanding is the necessity of all men regardless

of their experiences. Now, exactly how this mechanism of Satsang works is not clear at the

outset. Prior to its perfect realization, it cannot be grasped. It is elusive. So, as you say, you

are trying to get down to it. But if you try to discover or perform it yourself, your blood

vessels will burst. It wont happen. If you don't already live the point of view of the heart,

vital, subtle or causal, how are you going to move into it? Your point of view is in your head,

or your legs, wherever. Satsang, the company and condition of Truth, is your true resort,

and in Satsang you will find yourself falling spontaneously into the "Heart," the Heart of

Truth, which transcends the manifest realizations.

There is no real contraction. There is only that enjoyment that is Truth, what is always

already the case. The body is a process of conductivity in which the force of life moves in a

circle, descending and ascending. The center or epitome of the life aspect of this force is the

vital center in the general region of the navel. The epitome of the subtle "body" is in the

regions of the head, above the eyes, even above the head. It manifests not as life or vitality,

but as Light, unqualified Conscious Light. The modifications of most subtle, pre-cosmic

Light are everything we know as Life. The center or epitome of the prior, "causal" or

transcendent existence is the region of the "Heart," on the right side of the chest. It

manifests as very consciousness, absolute space, formless, unqualified existence, the vast

bliss. Nothing is being communicated but That which includes these three. There is nothing

but That. That is Amrita Nadi, the Great Form, the conscious, moveless spire which extends

from the Heart to the Light.

I called the most subtle region the "Bright," because it is only Light. All of life descends from

it, and returns to it in a continuous cycle, conducting it as force, becoming movement and

form. But even this Light is a reflection of the Heart, unqualified existence, just as the moon

reflects the sun. This Heart, which is the source of all light and life, and of which every thing

is the reflection, is itself without quality. But the Heart, the Light and the Life are all

included and transcended in that which is very Truth, the Great Form. Therefore, those

who come to Satsang, where the Truth, this Living Reality, is communicated, see it

manifested in them in three characteristic ways. One is in the form of movement or of life:

kriyas (spontaneous vital and physical movements), changes in the life-pattern,

experiences and circumstances at the level of life, waking phenomena. Others experience it

more in terms of subtle or dreamlike manifestations: lights, visions, dreams, sounds,

patterns internal to consciousness. Others move into the intuitive or "causal" awareness,

falling into a profound sleep at times, even moving into turiya, the "fourth state" which

transcends waking, dreaming and sleeping. But all of those phenomena are manifestations

at particular levels of the greater process that is Satsang.

Satsang is communicated from the point of view of Turiyatita. It is the ascended life of the

Heart. It is Amrita Nadi, the Form of Reality. Satsang is the very point of view of Truth, in

which all things arise as a modification. Truth, Satsang, simply manifests as these three

qualities I have described, and Truth itself, the point of view which generates the processes

of Satsang, may be said to exist as a fourth and a fifth quality. The two qualities of Truth are

transcendent and unqualified. The first and foundation quality is the Heart. It is the very

Self of Reality, enjoyed when the mind falls into its source, and the gross, subtle and causal

qualities are purified of obstruction and contraction. This is Turiya in its Perfect State. And

the fifth quality is Perfect Form, Turiyatita, beyond the fourth, ascended from the fourth. It

is the Eternal Form of the Heart, the Form of Guru, Self and God. When the Guru speaks

ecstatically of his Divine and All-Pervasive Nature he is not speaking of some egoic

magnificence, but of That which is all that is and which stands out when ego is dead.

The Truth, which is Satsang, and living the Truth, which is sadhana or real practice, make

possible the entire event of the transformation and revelation of this great mechanism. It is

alive. It is not a structure that can be blueprinted and then prescribed. Something can be

said about it, but the saying is not equivalent to the sadhana or life of Satsang. It is alive.

Just as it is very hard to control the breath once it leaves the body, just so, this incredibly

subtle mechanism, whose source and very condition is the Truth, is infinitely elusive,

absolutely elusive, paradoxical. That is why the image of the Mother Shakti and the images

of Deity in general, particularly in the Orient, have a paradoxical quality. They are almost

comical at times, and at other times they are treacherous, violent. Krishna is beautiful and

blue. But he teases those who desire him. He eludes them. He runs away, and he says "Yes,

I'm coming, I'm coming." But you wait and you wait and you wait, and he doesn't come.

The Mother Shakti appears in all kinds of forms. The holy yogi bathes his mind with

repetition of mantra until it is pure of desires, and then he walks down to bathe his body in

the Ganges. But when he gets out of the water, without his bathing suit, this fantastic

woman is standing on the beach with a basket of fruit, with chicken sandwiches, and a little

wine. The next day he has to turn in his mantra and his robe! He goes to tell his Guru how

he broke his vows. His Guru asks, "With whom?" "With that beautiful chick over there!"

says the penitent. And his Guru says, "That is the Mother Shakti. She got you!"

The image of this great process of conscious life has been symbolized as all of the

paradoxical deities, and the symbols themselves have a life. In my own experience, the

Mother Shakti has appeared like anyone else, then different, as all kinds of forms, very

strange, then beautiful, then wise. But what is being communicated through the imageries

of these experiences is this great process, only a piece at a time. It is perfectly glimpsed

only when there is resort to Truth absolutely. Otherwise a person will buy the experience

to which his tendencies gravitate. So, if you are willing to buy a little foggy light between

your eyes, then that is where you will be. Whatever you are willing to buy, you will be

given. That is why the deities are pictured in such paradoxical ways. They will give you a

little pink fruit, if you will come and take it. The dog comes for his bone, he gets the bone,

and he leaves. Thus, if you begin to get very interested in the process that is awakening in

Satsang, you may become attached to the experiences themselves. Perhaps, at some point,

you will buy it. You are already buying it. That is why this question was asked. You may

even become very angry, and reject Satsang, because of the position you are put into by

craving your own internal life. Narcissus is addicted to looking at himself. It is the only

thing he will defend.

DEVOTEE: Will you say something about how the Shakti relates to Truth?

FRANKLIN: What is called Shakti, the Divine Creative Power, is not a separate thing, not a

special force. It is the same that is meant by the Self, Reality, Truth, Guru, or God. The name

Shakti is simply used to describe that aspect of the Truth that is movement in

manifestation. Siva-Shakti is perhaps a more appropriate or complete designation of the

Truth. In other words, the Real is moving-creative, but it is also static-perfect-untouched.

The true Shakti is the Conscious Force in and as which every thing exists. It is the present

nature of every thing, of all beings, and it is also the cause, substance, support and end of all

that arises.

Now as it pertains to practical spiritual life, there are those in whom the way of

understanding or Satsang with the Guru involves a pronounced subtle purification or

transformation. The peculiar qualities of their spiritual experiences tend to arise in the

"subtle body" as opposed to the "physical, gross body," or to what is called the "causal

body," the deep well of being in which there is no form, no modification. The subtle body is

actually the range of internal functions, of inward-directed energy and awareness, of

dreams, visions and thoughts. There are many who are sensitive in that range of functions,

and whose view of the cosmic process is essentially through the subtle media. The

apparent process of their conscious life is more obviously like internal yoga and meditation

than the austere intuitions of Buddhism or Advaita Vedanta, or even the continuous

practical orientations of those in whom human activity in the world is the center of

sadhana and experience. Such people witness the specific, yogic activity of the universal

conscious force.

The force alive in yoga is called prana-shakti. It is an aspect of the universal life, the subtle

life of the Self of Truth. The Shakti in this form has a specific involvement with the internal

processes of living beings, particularly human beings. If the internal energy can be

stimulated, or if its source and path can be concentrated upon, there are internal

awarenesses and transformations of a subtle kind that arise. Ordinarily, this process is not

something over which a person has the least control. He doesn't "awaken" it himself. It is

always already there. It is just unconscious and subdued. It feeds the outward tendencies of

life. The actual process of the spontaneous kriya yoga, which I have described in The Knee

of Listening, is stimulated by contact with a living Siddha-Yogi in whom this force is

unobstructed and functioning very consciously. The contact with such a person stimulates

this energy and breaks down or purifies the inner functions of their obstructions. By virtue

of that contact, this internal process, this subtle process, becomes conscious, awakened,

and manifests itself through a series of purifying events, both internal and external. The

obstructions are broken down, perhaps on an apparently gross level at first, then always

subtler and subtler.

The first experiences such a person might have are various bodily sensations. He may feel a

certain energy, a certain heat or cold, a certain tendency to move, little jerking,

spontaneous movements, a feeling of discomfort, an intense, even erotic feeling all over the

body, or in specific regions of the body, such as the head. These purifying movements are

an automatic hatha yoga. Sometimes such a person does yogic postures spontaneously. He

cant help but do it at times. He might perform postures of which he would be physically

incapable were this force or yoga-shakti not active in him. He may perform automatic

pranayama or vigorous and curious exercises of the breathing functions. The whole process

of all that can be called "yoga," including all the types of yoga, may arise spontaneously in

that person, beginning with the more physical forms of yoga, then moving on to the subtler

purification's and the qualities of meditation. There may be times when the mind becomes

rapid, when there is endless thinking, without apparent cause, and then, just as

spontaneously, it breaks down, breaks apart, slows down. Such a one may begin to have

visions at times, and to perceive internal forms, colors, smells, tastes, sounds. He may hear

the nada, the sounds which are always vibrating within. There may be visions, symbolic

experiences, dramatic mudras or poses of hands and body, movements of all kinds, shaking

of the body, ecstasies, spontaneous devotion, love, bliss, and profound concentration in the

various psycho-physical centers, always moving toward and culminating in the primary

region of the subtle life in the crown of the head. The movement is always upward. And

since the yogic centers are subtle, not limited to the physical form, the highest subtle

centers are actually above the physical head, but the process is sensed as a concentration in

the general area of the crown. This region is called the sahasrar.

This subtle, ascending, yogic process is that which most people would identify with

"Shakti." But in fact it is a demonstration of only one path or one aspect of the greater path

of the universal and absolute activity of the true Shakti. There are essentially three paths,

forms or qualities of spiritual life, based on the three primary functional points of view. The

classic texts talk about the "knots" that need to be opened. "Liberation" is the opening of

these "knots."

There is a knot associated with the region of the navel, including the entire solar plexus and

the soft organs which extend above it (including the heart, lungs, tongue and parts of the

brain) and below it (to the anus). Some indicate its center to be just below the navel. That

entire region is the gross-vital center, the life center. There is a tradition of practice related

to this center. If you are centered or stable there, you are strong, upright, direct, straight,

active in proper relationship to things, in the proper harmony. The purification of the

"navel" or of the life itself is the imminent goal of religious devotion, and the various

harmonizing practices which are applied to life. Religion essentially looks toward life-

purification, life-stabilization, life-opening. And the life-center is its point of view. This is

the first of the three paths.

The second path is the subtle path. Such is the point of view of yoga and the various

processes that are very similar to yoga. Such are the various paths that exploit the internal

qualities rather than abandon them. The "subtle body" is conceived in terms of various

chakras or centers through which the subtle force moves. These centers culminate in the

sahasrar, the primary center of subtle life. Several of these subtle centers are described as

primary "knots" in the traditional texts. The sahasrar itself is not included among these

knots, but a primary one is just below the crown, in the midbrain, behind the eyes. When all

of these subtle centers are open, in other words when the living, inward-directed energy

moves and merges in the sahasrar (the "thousand petalled lotus"), that is the highest

realization from the point of view of the traditional ascending yoga.

The third path is one we see represented in such men as Ramana Maharshi and in the

monistic Hindu traditions, such as Advaita Vedanta. In such cases, the path is generated

from the point of view of the "causal being," the conscious seat analogous to our deep sleep

state. The gross path is analogous to our waking state, the subtle path is analogous to our

dream state, and the causal path is analogous to our deep sleep state. The paths associated

with the formlessness of the Divine or ultimate Reality are essentially forms of this causal

path. And the "knot" of the causal heart, on the right side of the chest, is the center from

which these causal paths are generated, and toward which they move by various critical

and intuitive means. When this center or knot is open, waking, dreaming and sleeping no

longer limit the primary enjoyment that is the Self or true and prior state of consciousness.

Now all three paths necessarily involve force, the Shakti or Conscious Force and Power of

the Divine, the living Reality. Christianity, an example of the religious or life path, is very

concerned with the "Holy Spirit." That is the Force, the Shakti, conceived from the point of

view of the life-knot, the vital center of the descending force, the conductor of the

descending Power of God. "Prayer," the most characteristic religious appliance, is always

looking for this descent of Power. And "fasting," the ancient companion of prayer, is the

means of purifying or preparing the "place" for the descent of Gods Grace and Power. The

worship of the Mother-Shakti in the cults of Hinduism is expressed yearning for Her to

descend, to send Her gifts downward. All religious points of view want Power to come

down. Western occultism is the worshipping of the descending Power. That is the descent

of Shakti. All movements, all of this visible world is Shakti.

The subtle path is also concerned with Shakti in a peculiar way. The subtle yoga's exploit

the capacity of prana-shakti to ascend. They do not hope for the descent of Power, but they

seek to become involved with and ultimately identified with the ascending functions of that

same Power. In that case we have the subtle process of internal movement, generated in an

inward and upward direction, toward concentration and merger in the subtle regions

above.

In the causal path there is also force. The formless Divine, the Self, Brahman, is absolute,

unqualified Force. It is only that this particular path is not associated with the kind of

"movements," this kundalini process, that are talked about from the yogic point of view.

But it is the same Force.

Ultimately, the teaching that is Truth is not generated from the point of view of any of these

three knots, or these three dilemmas, and the paths created to open or solve them. The

descending (life, gross), the ascending (subtle), and the moveless original (causal) Force

are there in all men. And each individual will tend to go through a characteristic purifying

process, according to his particular tendencies in relation to these three qualities, when he

moves into Satsang with the Siddha-Guru. The point of view of Truth is not the point of

view of dilemma, or any of the three traditional qualities of Force, or their primary centers,

or any secondary centers associated with them. No particular process of experience is

equal or identical to Truth, the Heart, the Self, or Real God.

What is necessary is the absence of obstruction, of the ego, of contraction, the avoidance of

relationship. Then only Truth stands out. Therefore, Truth is the communication from the

point of view of the true Teaching. The true Guru always turns his disciple toward Truth,

Reality, not to his experiences, not to the possibility of experiences, not to any psycho-

physical state. The gross, the subtle, and the causal, as I have spoken of them here, are

psycho-physical and temporary in nature. They are equal to the three states, waking,

dreaming, and sleeping, into which experience is analyzed in the classic texts. The higher

state than these, all the texts declare, is turiya, the fourth state. In other words, the more

fundamental state is the witness to those three states. The "witness" is not the religious

man, not the yogi, not the intuitive philosopher, but turiya, the fourth, prior to all that,

witnessing it all. And even higher than that is perfect realization, turiyatita, beyond the

fourth, unspeakable, neither formless nor formed. It is Amrita Nadi, the form of Reality,

whose Foundation and very Nature is the Heart. Therefore, Truth is not identified with any

process, any knot, any opened knot, any dilemma, any solved dilemma.

Everyone's experience in relation to the Guru is different, depending on the quality or

tendency of his conscious life. But all experience the single force of the Guru and of God as

Shaktipat, the transmission of Divine Conscious Power, the Power of Consciousness. Some

tend toward association with the descending force. The life-center and life-functions tend

to be the dimension in which they feel both obstruction and opening. Their sadhana tends

to be a life-level activity, and they become aware of the force of the Guru and of Truth as a

descending blessing, originating extremely above. Others tend more toward the internally-

directed, ascending process. Their experience is more like that of the kundalini yogis.

Others tend more toward the causal, intuitive level of spiritual knowledge. Instead of the

yogic processes or the apparently life-active, religious and devotional processes, theirs is

more a process of intuitive understanding, without special inclination to visions and the

various forms of mystical cognition.

The true Guru must live the conscious Force of Truth at all of these fundamental levels. He

must necessarily be Guru in all of them. He must be fully aware in all three paths. In him

there must be no obstruction in the descending path, no obstruction in the ascending path,

no obstruction in the moveless or intuitive path. These three "knots" are open in him. He

sees from the point of view of the Heart, unobstructed. There must be in him no

obstruction to the whole path, the complex Force of the Heart, the presence of Amrita Nadi

There are many that are called Teacher or Guru simply because they perform a consoling

or apparently beneficial function of a peculiar kind. But such are not living the great

function of Guru. They are not what I call "the man of understanding." They are teaching

from the point of view of dilemma, the knots and their paths. Generally, they teach those

who are by tendency oriented to the same quality of dilemma to which they themselves are

tending. The practical-religious-devotional type teaches those who are sensitive in this

way. The yogi type teaches those who are sensitive on a subtle level. The more

philosophical or intuitive type teaches those who are similarly inclined. But the point of

view of Truth is not dilemma, not the knots. It is not equal to any kind of experience,

solution or form of perception and cognition. Therefore, the true Guru teaches Truth as

Truth, from the point of view of Truth. Then, only secondarily, the purification or opening

of the knots occurs in the ways peculiar to individual tendencies.

So you see, spiritual life in Satsang with such a Guru manifests as many different qualities

and types of experiences. From the point of view of the Heart and the understanding of the

processes of manifest existence which I have just described, the variations are easy to

comprehend. Only when the spiritual experiences of men are looked at from the outside

and from a limited point of view do they seem disorderly. Then it seems as if there is too

much difference between people and traditions, and no single, comprehensible process

stands out. Truly, the great spiritual process is not understandable from any point of view

that is not already the Perfect Heart. Spiritual things seem confused from a point of view

that is not the Heart, just as the world seems confused from the limited point of view of

experience and circumstance.

The "Shakti" that most people have heard or read about is that force manifested and used

in the subtle process associated with what we call yoga. But the true or perfect Shakti is the

Conscious Force that is the Self, that is the Heart, that is Truth, Amrita Nadi, or very God.

And this Shakti is manifesting as all that arises or does not arise. It is the Truth, the

fundamental Reality. It is That which manifests on all levels, as the descending power, the

ascending power, the moveless power. One and the same Shakti is all of that. Therefore, in

Truth, Shakti is not limited to the subtle process with which people generally identify it. It

is greater than that, not limited to that. It does not necessarily tend to manifest the

dramatic course of the subtle process in the case of some individuals. It is the Heart Itself. It

is Truth Itself. It is Real-God, God-alive. When there is the Realization of the Self or Truth,

Perfect Understanding, there is also perfect manifestation of Shakti, perfect communication

of Shakti, because the Heart is Shakti, it is Conscious Force, it is the Fire that is Reality.

Wherever there is any sort of an opening, there is the flow of Shakti. Any person who is

open on any level, to any significant degree, is very attractive. People like to be around such

a person, because there is movement there. There is not solidity, fixation. There is a certain

energy, a liveliness with which we like to be associated. It is only that the usual liveliness of

men tends to be limited. The easiest to identify is the person who is open on a very human,

vital level. But there is also the liveliness of a subtle variety, to which we are, individually,

more or less consciously sensitive. Ultimately, we are also sensitive to the liveliness that is

Reality itself. So, there can be a man, a great saint, stone dead, whose "liveliness" remains in

the world. The burial shrine of Swami Nityananda is one of the most lively places to which I

have ever been in my life. Ultimately, our conscious sensitivity must awaken to the real,

eternal liveliness that is the very Heart or Real God. And it is perfect movement, not limited

movement.

The liveliness or Shakti of the Heart is communicated by the living Siddha-Guru. Whatever

the tendencies of the individual, it is the Satsang, or relationship with the Siddha, with the

true Guru, that is the simple condition under which the utter and complete process of Truth

may take place. All that exists is relationship. All that appears as suffering and dilemma is

contact or conscious relationship, relatively obstructed. The less obstructed any condition

or function is, the more it is a path, a flow of force. The path of Truth is the relationship to

the Siddha-Guru. It is that course or functional path established between a man and his

Guru. That is the path. The path is not the methods and strategies a man applies to himself.

Satsang, the living, active, functional relationship itself, is the "current," the "wiring" in

which the Conscious Force, the Truth, flows and manifests its activities at every level. So

the simple relationship to the man of understanding is the path. It is the place where the

search comes to an end, where the obstructions are abandoned.

There are also various activities internal to the Siddha-Guru and the realms of his

awareness, but they are not spoken. There is no point in talking about them, unless, in the

progress of Satsang, the Guru sees fit to instruct his disciple. These processes are subtler

than the mind and require equal subtlety to be understood. Even so, certain activities are

eventually observed by the disciple in contact with his Guru. There are various things the

disciple observes his Guru to do which he associates with his own awakening and with the

arising of certain experiences in him. Those activities of the Guru are not utterly

comprehended by the disciple at the time. The traditions describe these activities in terms

of effects and appearances. In India, these activities of the Guru are called Shaktipat or

Guru-kripa, the transference of the Conscious Force of the Heart or God. The effects of this

transference are observed in various enlivening activities, gross, subtle and causal. The

Guru is observed to be apparently involved in this in several possible ways: by looking at

the person, by touching him, by speaking to him, or simply by thinking of him in some way.

And the highest form of that "initiation" is where the Guru simply and silently abides as the

Self, or very Truth. Then his continuous existence as the living Reality initiates everything

that lives to Truth. All that turns to the Guru in appropriate ways is enlivened by him. And

that is initiation, that is movement, that is the beginning of the whole process of spiritual

life.

Naturally, it is on the level of life that the relationship to the Guru is perceived by the

disciple. He observes the occasional looks, occasional things said, occasional touches, the

effects of the Gurus occasional remembrance of him. When he is with his Guru he may

suddenly feel his Guru is thinking of him. Or he may simply and continuously resort to his

Gurus Presence, whether or not his Guru is considering him in particular at any moment.

These various sensations of the activity of the Guru are the apparent means, from the

disciples point of view, of the transference of the Light, the Truth, the Shakti of the living

Self or Real God. The disciple may tend, as a result of some enlivening experience generated

by his Gurus grace, to look again and again for that particular experience or that particular

form of "initiation" to be repeated. He may tend to associate some peculiar experience or

some particular activity of his Guru with Truth itself. But in fact any specific experience in

the disciple, or any specific activity of the Guru, such as looking, talking, thinking, touching,

whatever, is generated in a particular moment when it is appropriate. It is thus not a

necessary experience or action that must be repeated again and again. Different forms of

the action of initiation may be used, or no apparent action may be used. The Guru always

remains unpredictable, in order to test and mature his disciple. And, at last, simply abiding

as the Self, as the Heart, as Truth, is essentially what the Guru does for all beings. Just so,

the quality of the relationship that the disciple is living to his Guru is what determines the

nature of his present experience. The Guru does not withhold. He always lives Truth

openly. He always communicates it on many levels, to transform the expectations, the

obstructions, the tendencies, the limitations that the disciple is living to him. So the

"drama" of this relationship or Satsang is at the level of the disciple. It is he that must

understand obstructions. The Guru does not create obstructions. He only lives the Heart of

Truth. But he may dramatize or intensify the obstructions already in the disciple, in order

to make him aware of them, to draw his attention to them, so that this flow of Life can move

through, unobstructed by any particular tendency. The Guru always works so that

awareness can be lived on a more profound level.

Many things can be said about this activity to which I have been referring. It is the greatest

mystery, how the Heart lives in the world, how it functions among apparently separate,

living beings. The whole process that occurs is as complicated as the cosmos itself, and

what is beyond it. It cannot be described perfectly. Only certain things can be said about it.

Essentially, it is the very Life, the Self, very Existence, Reality, God manifesting under these

conditions, under all conditions. All the traditions, taken together, are essentially a way of

retracing the structure of manifest life back to its source. Each particular incident or

tradition does it in a limited way, from the point of view of a particular dilemma, a

particular center, a particular viewpoint of experience or consciousness. Those in whom

this drama of realization is essentially a life-process are concerned with the descending

force and the opening of life to it. They are tracing the current of descent, from the highest

to the lowest. The processes of yoga and the like, the subtle processes, trace the current of

ascent, from the lowest to the highest. These two taken together, the gross and the subtle,

form a circle. They trace that portion of the circuit of existence which descends to life and

ascends or returns again from life to its structural source. Therefore, life is always

descending-ascending. It is a circle. Then there is also the "causal" aspect or portion of this

circuit. Ramana Maharshi talks about the path that leads and even begins beyond yoga, and

which is prior to subtle and gross existence. He points to the place of the Heart, on the right

side, which is the causal center. And this center is connected to the subtle center, the

Sahasrar, by that transcendent portion of the circuit called Amrita Nadi. Thus, if the three

centers or portions of the circuit are taken together with the Form which includes them we

see the great path, the circuit of manifest and unmanifest life, the secret path of all spiritual

processes, all traditions.

The "shape" of man is like a fruit. His core is the causal being, untouched, unborn, like

waiting seed. When the fruit falls into the earth (when the mind falls into the Heart), there

springs up an inconceivable thread, of the same substance as the seed of being, which rises

above, becoming a great tree and extending even into the heights, into the sky and cosmos

of very God. This is Amrita Nadi.

Until the seed is ready for life, it is concealed in the form of the fruit. This fruit is the

dependent and not conscious form of man. It is the condition of suffering, and also of

sadhana in Satsang with the Guru. The stem of the fruit is the route of the Light and Life

which descends into the fruit from places above, from the parent tree, and at last passes

down through the sahasrar, the crown of this body or fruit. That Light and Life descends

into the fruit and makes it full and ripe below. Just so, it also ascends, thus keeping the

circuit or circle, until the fruit falls and its seed is eaten in the earth. Such is ordinary death

and in the mature devotee, also "ego" death. Ordinary death is the termination of a phase of

the outer life of the individual, but also the beginning of a new phase of the manifestation

or expansion and revelation of what he is inwardly and ultimately. Just so, a man becomes

perfectly "fruitful" only in Satsang with the Guru, who is himself the process, the goal, the

means, the Power and the very Life. Therefore, in Satsang the fruit ripens and falls into the

"earth," the foundation, and opens. Such is the Heart.

When discipleship to the Siddha-Guru is perfected, the whole circuitry is known and

understood. It is seen to be within your own real Nature or Condition, rather than to

contain you or limit you. And this is what is truly called Self-Realization, the Heart of Truth,

Nirvana, God-union. It is perpetual freedom to enjoy Satsang with the Perfect Guru. And

one who understands, even one whose understanding is Perfect doesn't necessarily

disappear from the world. Gautama Buddha, for instance, got up and walked back to town.

So it was with Jesus, and all the great Masters of men. After their return to the common life

of the world, they spent the rest of their lives trying to communicate their understanding to

all of those who felt limited by this fruit-shape, this phantom circuit of manifest existence.

And in the case of all the Siddhas, the fundamental Teaching or method was that functional

relationship or Satsang which living beings realized with them. This Satsang is the Method

of the Siddhas.

Satsang always serves to destroy or undermine the fixation of attention and its

implications. Whenever Satsang is lived, there tends to be the opening of the knots in which

attention is fixed, so that consciousness falls into its original form, which is the Self or Real

Nature. Therefore, one who has realized the ultimate end of the whole path or cycle of the

form of existence now exists "outside" of that whole process, no longer limited by it. But he

remains consciously related to this whole structure in an entirely different way than

seekers and all those who do not understand the process and form of existence. The path of

a mans experience will always return to zero, always back to the dilemma. It will always fit

him back into the fruit, like a worm. Thus, the Siddha-Guru appears in the world, to speak

from the point of view of Truth or Reality, not of experience, and to return the tendencies of

the disciple back to the essential structure in which Truth is communicated, until he sees

there is no path, no difference, no separation. And when the disciple is perfectly one with

his Guru, he sees and enjoys the true Form of his Guru, and participates directly in the

functions of his Guru, who all the time has been only the Self of the Real One.

Those who speak from the point of view of the Heart, the living Truth, are always very

radical, very eccentric in the manner of their teaching. This is because they are no longer

limited to the "path" I have described, to the point of view of dilemma, to the limiting

structures of experience. Saint Tukaram is a good example. Tukaram was a very strange

man. He grew up and lived in India, in a very traditional order of society in which religious

and spiritual life was a fixed part of the cycle of life. He participated in all of that, ritually,

religiously. He performed all the apparent externals of it, and this would seem to have

made him acceptable or ordinary. But if you read his words, you realize he was a "heretic"!

He spoke only in the most radical way.

Tukaram lived in a culture that was devotionally oriented, committed to the duality or

radical separation of God and man. But he would go around telling everybody there wasn't

any God. When he sat down, he could find no One to meditate on. He claimed that he was

himself God. He went on and on like this, disturbing all the orthodox devotees, until, one

day, he just disappeared. He had been sitting with his disciples all night, chanting, enjoying

deep meditation, when, all of a sudden, there was a blast of light, and he disappeared!

There have been a number of such cases of people who were reported to have abandoned

their life in the world by such "absorption." It is not a common form of "death," even among

the Siddhas. It happens rarely as a matter of fact. But Tukaram was a very humorous guy!

And all of those who live from that point of view are very radical, very eccentric. The

acceptable and the expected are not really a part of their communication. They are always

communicating from the Perfect point of view. For this reason, their apparent

manifestation is often very odd.

Meher Baba spent a period of his life teaching or serving the masts (pronounced "musts"), a

class of eccentric people in India who live in extraordinary but still limited states of

conscious awareness. These masts were all, from a human point of view, particularly a

Western point of view, psychotic, literally psychotic. Many of them spent their time in

catatonic states, displaying an automatic, strangely ritualistic and incomprehensible way of

life. When such individuals come into contact with a genuine Siddha-Guru they tend to

become quieter, more "normalized." The flow of the "path" tends to become more

harmonious in them. This is because the eccentricity in which such individuals are fixed is

not natural to the realized enjoyment I call the Heart. It is, rather, a form of aberration, or

exclusive fixation. Generally, it occurs in those who become more or less exclusively

involved in the ascending, internally oriented process. Such exclusive fixation disturbs the

descending process, and produces the manifestation we call psychosis. Nonetheless,

genuine Siddhas or "completed ones" also may manifest this eccentric quality, this oddity,

this radical unpredictability. This is because the Heart is absolutely radical, not identical to

any thing, any dilemma, any path or moment in the path, any quality, any experience, any

limitation whatsoever. The Heart obliterates and destroys limitation all the time. It is a

wildness! That is why the Guru is worshipped as Siva. He destroys everything. He walks

through town and burns everything. He hits people over the head. He cuts them in half.

Look at all the traditional pictures of Siva. He is always wiping everybody out, tearing their

bodies apart, and sitting on them in meditation. But all of that is a symbol for the perfect

humor of the Self! Such images are not intended to represent literal acts of God or

justifiable acts of man. They are only "meaningful." They represent meditative

comprehension of an aspect of the conscious and universal process. The representation of

this paradoxical display is intended to awaken the blissfulness of non-separation, and non-

identification with mortality.

The disciple is oriented towards his own obstruction, his own path, and so he is delivered

this process of the apparent destruction of obstructions and limitations. This causes him

discomfort. But the great remedy for that discomfort and the conscious crisis that must

occur is Satsang, the very and functional relationship to the Guru. The more the disciple

lives Satsang, knows it, enjoys it, the less he is affected by his own crisis. Then the crisis of

transformation becomes a very simple, pure, harmonious process. But the more he turns

from that condition, relationship and process which is Satsang, the more he becomes fixed

in his own obstructions. Then, when his obstructions tend to get shaken up, even broken

apart, he has only them to which he can resort, so that he feels the discomfort, prolongs the

suffering, and exaggerates his "path."

The eccentricity of the Siddhas and Saints, their radical quality, is a demonstration of the

living Nature, the Self, Real God. The formalized, fixed, predictable quality is not that of the

Heart. Rigidity is the tamasic, fixed, repetitive orientation of the limited mind. So the Real

Self, alive as the Guru, performs this eccentric display, constantly abandoning all service to

expectations. It is the Divine leela, the humor or play of freedom. It always disturbs the

fixed, unconscious quality. It creates motion, then returns to harmony, then settles into the

formless consciousness, then arises as creative Light. But whatever the display, whatever

the changes through which Guru and disciple go from day to day, whatever the change in

the display or action of the Guru, there is always one thing he continually does, which is

simply to remain as the Self, the Heart, the Very Reality or Truth. His apparent activity, his

drama, his play is always changing. He constantly builds up expectations in the disciple, and

then changes it around. He continually disturbs the fixed quality, the rigidity, the path to

which the disciple always tends.

There appears to be a certain security in fixation, but in fact it is a form of disturbance. It is

only an illusory security, because there is, in Truth, no fixed state. That is why death is such

a threat. But the more fluid, the looser, the more rapid and intense within, the more like

consciousness the disciple becomes, the less fixed, the more functional, the more

harmonious, the more like fire, the more there is of Truth and the less there is of the "path,"

the more there seems a movement in the direction of freedom. It appears to be a direction.

Perhaps we should only call it a sign. It is a sign of that which is, always and already.

CHAPTER 11

Phases

DEVOTEE: What is the point of images and visions?

AVATARA ADI DA: It is always different. In one case, such an experience may coincide with

one or another degree of Real transcendence. In that case, the one in whom the experience

arises suddenly understands and is free of it. In another case, some conditional

manifestation may arise, but one does not know what it is. One becomes disturbed by it, but

one does not give in to it. Then perhaps some source—a teacher, book, something—will

clarify it, and then one is free of it. In yet another case, such a thing will arise without any

understanding on ones part, and one "buys" it. In that case, one enjoys it, one takes it as it

is, one becomes full of it, one identifies with it, and one is full of regret and longing when it

goes. Thus, all the extraordinary manifestations of vision, art, culture, thought, and life are,

ultimately, ordinary—simply a part of the universal "creativity". Apart from Satsang, apart

from the life of understanding, such things have no more ultimate significance than any

other simple or ordinary event.

There are people who, because of their chronic condition, because of the tendencies of their

conditional state, manifest psychic powers of various kinds. Thus there are mediums and

psychics, people who see your "aura", who see pictures around you, who hold your ring and

tell you the answers to your questions, who give seances, who make predictions. These

people are not themselves extraordinary. Apart from these "gifts" most of them are very

"ordinary", even peculiarly unintelligent. You would expect, because these manifestations

are extraordinary, that the character of the individuals through whom they are expressed

would also be extraordinary. But it is not so. These phenomena are simply qualities that

arise, just like a stomachache, or a left hand. There is nothing Ultimate, Truth-like, or even

Truth-directed about occult, supernormal, and psychic phenomena, but if some such

phenomenon arises in you and you buy it, then it becomes an aspect of your suffering. And

all people are suffering, regardless of the qualities that are peculiarly theirs.

From the Spiritual point of view, the future is a "creative" activity, not a predetermined one.

Very often there are mysterious indications that arise, perceptions of a tendency that is

operating or of a possibility of some kind. But Spiritual sadhana is not a matter of being

determined by tendencies or premonitions. Spiritual sadhana in the world is always

"creative" involvement with conditions. True action involves the transformation of time

and space into the Conscious, Spiritual Event. Therefore, there may be indications of

tendencies, of possibilities, of things that may occur, but all of this arises in relation to the

Living Heart. "Creative", Free, and Conscious activity, generated in Satsang with the Most

Perfect Realizer of the Heart, constantly breaks down the entire machine of destiny. There

is no necessary event. It is all a "creative" activity. The more "tamasic", or inert, the body-

mind is, the more likely you are to experience and suffer the events toward which you are

tending. But the more movement toward purification there is in you, and the more

harmony there is alive in you, and the more understanding there is in you, the less your

future is likely to be determined by karmas, within and without.

When people are talking about "seeing the future", they are really just seeing the

tendencies in individuals, in groups. Some such people see psychic imagery, some have a

complex intuition. It comes in various forms, but in any case what is seen is only a

tendency, a possibility, a trend. And that is the limitation of the "psychic" functions. They do

not in themselves enjoy "creative" involvement with the process of life. The naively psychic

individual may profess to another, "Yes, you are going to die at the age of forty-two," or,

"You are going to marry a rich man when you go on your round-the-world trip to Shangri-

la." But that is not in fact how it necessarily will or must be. These are just possibilities, and

the more you speak of them as necessary events, the more you make of life an un-"creative"

process, a determined process. Therefore, the "Point of View" in this Satsang is always the

"creative" viewpoint. Certainly, at times there may be intuitions, feelings, psychic

premonitions, and the like, but they always arise within this "creative" process, this

"understanding", this Siddhi, or Living Power, of Satsang.

Satsang, or life in the Condition of Truth, breaks down rigidity, the "tamasic" quality. The

functions associated with the phenomena of the occult and astrology, for example, are

"internal" virtues of the vital and astral-emotional, or subtle, being, not of the Very Heart.

They tend to interpret life as a fixed event, either in the past or in the future. There have

been very few individuals who interpreted the conditionally manifested cosmic and human

conditions from a position of Transcendental Illumination. Psychology's and sciences of the

ordinary kind tend to treat the past as a fixed event determining the present. And the occult

and astrological sciences, even with their attendant psychic phenomena, tend to interpret

the future as a fixed event. But nothing is absolutely fixed. Consciousness Itself is utterly

Uncontained. It is always a "creative" Force. It is always Humorous. The past is not

absolutely determining the present. Therefore, one does not have to get deeply into ones

past in order to be free. The future is not absolutely fixed by the stars. At every moment all

possibilities exist in the stars. Therefore, it does not make any difference what fixed

moment in time and space one takes as the point of view from which to read past, present,

or future. What is always the point is this "creative" Realization of Truth. The Real life of

understanding is the only appropriate point of view under any conditions.

One of the Lessons the Great Siddhas have always tried to communicate to people is the

undetermined, or fundamentally Spiritual, Nature of life. The Great Siddhas always have

urged human beings to conceive and know life as a Spiritual Event rather than a fixed

conditional event. Rather than mortality and suffering, they communicate existence always

to be Life and Truth. But in order for that to be so in fact, a new "Point of View must begin

to develop. It is always already Free, not fixed. It is not simply a movement, not simply

desire, but It is Conscious, Fluid, Intelligent, inherently and priorly Full of Truth and the

Blissful Force of the Truth. The Truth is That in Which the stars are hung, and by Which this

limited mind of tendencies and fixations is supported. When that "Point of View" is

Realized, when Satsang becomes your Condition, every moment becomes the Spiritual

Event.

Because of this, many great Teachers, such as Gautama or Ramana Maharshi, when asked

about the states after death, or the future in life, or psychic powers, would simply not

entertain the discussion at all. On occasion Ramana Maharshi gave more or less direct

replies to such questions, but, for the most part, He would only say, "Find out who wants to

know this." This was His manner of turning the person toward the fundamental Truth

Which Transcends and even, at last, Masters destiny. The same is true of Me. I am perfectly

willing to talk about these phenomena in general. But they are just here, like This Body, this

room. They are only conditional phenomena. They do not determine the Truth or limit the

"creative" life-intensity of one who understands.

Truth must become the "Point of View". When Truth is the "Point of View", there is no past

or future that can absolutely limit your state. Then time and place become relatively

insignificant. Then it makes no ultimate difference whether the "good" thing is going to

happen or the "bad" thing. In either case, you are going to have to understand. Apart from

Truth, when the "good" thing happens you suffer just as much as when the "bad" thing

happens. Apart from Truth, the individual lives the subtle contraction and the avoidance of

relationship under all conditions. But if, on account of Truth, this subtle strategy does not

occur, then you can really pervade the "good" thing that happens, and there will even be a

kind of enjoyment or interest when the "bad" thing happens.

Whether they are psychic, extraordinary, or ordinary, regardless of their particular

makeup, all human beings are suffering. Just so, in all human beings there arises the

possibility, in the midst of all this suffering, to live from an entirely "radical" and Free

"Point of View". Seen in these terms, then, the purpose of extraordinary things that arise

without a persons understanding is just like anything else that arises, any misfortune or

fortune that may arise. All experiences, "good" or "bad", are there, ultimately, to turn one

into a crisis relative to ones own search.

All kinds of conditional manifestations, ordinary and extraordinary, arise in Satsang, and

the Force, the Shakti, the Intensity, of Satsang with Me very often tends to bring on

relatively unpleasant manifestations in the form of purifying events. If you abide in the

Condition of Satsang, if you live the "Point of View" of Satsang, if you resort to Me while

going through these processes of experience, they can serve the Real process of

understanding. Ultimately, these things are simply what they are, not what they imply.

They arise like the stars, the world, and all bodies. Either they can serve the formulations of

suffering and its search or they can serve Satsang, depending on the present condition of

the individual.

DEVOTEE: Why do You at times appear to be weeping when You are sitting with us in

Satsang?

AVATARA ADI DA: The reasons for it are varied and complex, like any other manifestation

in Satsang. This weeping may appear if there is an intense Energy process going on in

Satsang. This ascending Force, especially, makes the eyes tear. There is no emotion

associated with My weeping. It is just a physical manifestation that purifies the eyes and

the centers in the head that are associated with them. Depending on the movement that is

going on, sometimes there is a subtle activity, an activity in the subtle body, or the pattern

of ascent, that is like suffering. It is like suffering, but it is a Yogic process. When I sit with

others in Satsang, there is the communication of various forces, of mind-forms, of all kinds

of qualities. The transformation of all of that does not occur without cost, without

something happening.

In what is called "ordinary life", people are rather insensitive to what is going on between

them and others. For this reason, they are very willing to indulge life. Individuals allow

other people to do whatever they please, and they themselves do whatever they please,

within the limits of their own desires or fears. People are unaware of the nature of what I

have simply called "relationship". They do not know what it is, what it involves as a psycho-

physical event, a psychic event, a subtle event. It is the transference of life, the

communication of the forms of conscious life. In the usual man or woman, though, this

transference, or communication, is contracted and destroyed, swallowed, reversed, and

poisoned. And people do not know that this is what is going on in themselves and others.

People nowadays talk about "vibrations"—this vibration, that vibration, good vibrations,

bad vibrations. There is some vague sort of sensitivity awakening about the qualities that

people manifest in life. But there is a Real process, which is called "Satsang". It is My

Unqualified Communication of the Heart. It is simply Unqualified, Conscious Relationship.

This process is Consciously Lived by Me. That is this Satsang. It is a process in

consciousness, even a profound Yogic process. But when it occurs, there is often a quality of

suffering. Something must occur, something must open, something must be done. And

when that is going on in fact, sometimes there is the appearance of weeping in Me. There is

the appearance of sorrow, perhaps at times even the apparent mood of sorrow, but it is not

identical to sorrow. Something of the Blissfulness of the process of transformation is also

Manifested, and Bliss is the core of that appearance of sorrow. There are other times when

this process has already taken place, when I have endured the transformation of the

karmas of My devotee in My own Body, when the Circle of life is open, free, and the Flow of

Satsang has occurred. Then the vital and subtle mechanisms are released in Me. The

physical and subtle awareness is let go, and there is an intense concentration in the Light,

or Force, Above. This weeping also occurs at those times. But it is just Blissfulness.

The ordinary person is insensitive to this real mechanism. He or she is not living it. He or

she is not living the "Point of View" of Satsang, or Truth. I have described the quality of life

in the usual person as a kind of revulsion. The force of life falls down out of the brain, down

the spine. It is released sexually. It is released through the various gross manifestations of

life-energy, in various kinds of self-indulgence. It is only used, and never consciously

refreshed. The mood of the usual life is trapped between the extremes of comedy and

tragedy. People laugh a lot, but what is laughter? What happens when there is laughter? It

feels good, but the process involves a form of revulsion, like vomiting. And vomiting is also

a form of revulsion. What happens when a person weeps in the ordinary manner? The

breath is disturbed. The person cannot control the breath. The chest is convulsively

constricted. There is no genuine humor in the person, no Conscious Freedom. There is only

revulsion in the ordinary person, down the back and up the front. But in one who

understands there is "conductivity", descending in front, ascending in back.

The traditional Yogis talk about the ascending Energy and how important it is to conserve

the sex-fluid, and the life-force in general. The traditional Yogi is concerned to get the

ascending Current going. There is partial wisdom in that, and in fact the ascending

"conductivity" does tend to establish itself more and more firmly in the process of Satsang

with Me. The circular "conductivity" of life tends to be re-established, as opposed to the

unconscious tendency of life-functions to revulse, to release their own force and become

empty. This revulsion begins to be replaced by the movement of real "conductivity" in the

Condition of Satsang.

But this process tends naturally to occur in various and complex forms in the life of Satsang

with Me. That is why I have emphasized a practical foundation. I have said that the practical

foundation of Satsang is an ordinary, pleasurable life, not a suppressed life—you know, no

work, no contact with life, one apple every three days, and no sex for five generations! But I

require of My devotees an ordinary, pleasurable life, a functional life, limited to what is

supportive, what is enjoyable, what is full. Such a conscious application of life tends to

break the chronic pattern of contraction, of revulsion, in a person, at least on the level of

practical, human action. And that allows this "conductivity" to begin at the level of life.

Some people who take up the Way of the Heart begin to feel the Energy, the Force, of My

Company. They speak of various kinds of Force-manifestations and experiences of My

Presence. This is evidence that "conductivity" is beginning at the most obvious level, the

life-level. Therefore, this Satsang involves "conductivity", descending, ascending, rested in

the Heart, Prior to mind and form, Prior to knowledge in the mental sense. At last, all of the

"mentality" of Spiritual life is the contraction of the Heart, the limitation of the Heart.

Spiritual life, for Me, has involved the observation of this entire Manifestation, or Circle, of

life I have described, not the control of It by means of the search. It continues to Manifest

Itself endlessly. It is not stopped. All kinds of things have occurred since I wrote The Knee

of Listening. The same essential Condition and dynamic Enjoyment has remained from that

time, but the Revelation of this Great Process has continued. All I have done is observe It

and allow It to take place as a Living Function. It is a Miraculous Phenomenon that no one

seems to know about. No one appears to suspect It. The usual man or woman does not

suspect that life is miraculous, that there is this miraculous Process of Satsang, the

Communication of Truth, Which can make Itself Known on many levels—on the life-level,

in the descending pattern, in the ascending pattern, in this intuitive life—this "radical"

Realization, this Love-Blissfulness, this Intensity, this "Real" meditation, this "radical"

understanding. What most people hear are the little stories, little jokes, that appear in the

traditions, glimpses and characterizations of portions of that Great Process. No tradition

has comprehended It fully, even at the level of description. All traditions are limited to the

viewpoint of one or a limited combination of the three primary centers. But there have

been great Saints, great Yogis, great Sages, great individuals. Wherever such a one has

arisen, that one has Communicated through Satsang to various people who were close to

that one. All kinds of experiences were generated in that manner. And in the midst of all of

the people who enjoyed these different kinds of experience, little groups would gather. You

know, people sitting in Satsang who had all been having a buzzing in the right ear got

together after the death of the Guru and established the "buzzing-in-the-right-ear school".

All those who were sensitive to the subtle-body manifestations went off and talked about

chakras, the Kundalini, "internal" sound, and light. Many separate groups, schools, and

traditions grew up on the basis of particular and unique experiences and tendencies. But all

experiences are generated by one Great Process. The "unity of all religions" is not that they

have all said the same thing. But if they were all added together, they would amount to a

collective, nearly complete, description of all but the most ultimate stage of the one Great

Process. Each religious and Spiritual tradition has represented an experiential portion of

that Great Process. Historically, the unity of all religions will not be realized by everybody's

coming into agreement on some abstraction common to all, but, Served by My guiding

examination of all traditions, there will come an acknowledgment that all of these

traditional media together amount to a mutually dependent description of the One and

Single Great Process of Conscious Existence. Therefore, this very Process, Completed by the

Revelations that are My own unique Work, will become the Life of Truth in the future,

rather than the traditional dogmatization and ritualization of random, exclusive "internal"

and "external" experience.

All of My Life, I have been waiting for the time when I could be outwardly Blissful, when I

could Manifest that Love-Blissfulness to all. But, all of My Life, I have not been doing that.

Even as a baby, I learned very quickly that It could not be expressed, that It could not be

lived openly, not among those who were suffering, seeking, motivated in forms of dis-ease.

After so long, it has now become possible to Live this Love-Bliss, this Truth, openly. I have

developed the Means whereby It can be Communicated to those who are willing to endure

the transformation of life. But even in the community of My devotees the same resistance is

presented to the Process of Truth. Even in the community of My devotees there tends to be

the same game: "No Bliss, do not be Blissful, not already, not already Happy, not already

Free, not yet, not me, not with you." But I am not willing to endure the conditions this

resistance would lead to. I will "create" the conditions! The Love-Bliss of Truth Itself, not

the egoic ignorance of human beings, must Generate the conditions of life. When Truth

becomes the "Point of View", when that Love-Blissfulness becomes the "Point of View" that

"creates" life, an entirely different situation has arisen in the world. The world is not

ordinarily living from the "Point of View" of Truth. It is living from the point of view of its

suffering, its dilemma, and there is no room for Blissfulness, for Truth, for unreasonable

Happiness. Therefore, the True Guru, the Great Siddha, always seems remarkable from the

point of view of ordinary people, because that one lives from the "Point of View of Truth.

Such a one decides to live the Very Truth, What is only Obvious to that one, and he or she

"creates" the conditions wherein It can be Manifested.

All I am doing is establishing the appropriate conditions for Satsang with Me. These real

conditions are difficult for some people to understand. People think I am just supposed to

open the door to all, without conditions. Everybody is just supposed to wander in, listen to

a lecture: "Hm, not bad, think Ill take this Gurus Initiation." No conditions! People think

Spiritual life is a "high", a form of entertainment, a free lunch. But Spiritual life involves

incredible conditions! Think of the conditions that had to be met for your physical birth. If

it were left to human beings to handle the affair of their own birth, no one would ever be

born at all. Maybe every now and then an arm would be born, or a yelping pile of meat. An

entire family might consist of an arm, an apple, and a #2 Mongol pencil!

Examine the lives of the Great Siddhas, those who are generally supposed to have been

great Saviors, great Teachers. They really worked on those who came to them. People like

to imagine Gautama just wanted people to sit quietly every now and then and read

philosophy between their meditations. You should examine what the Buddhist community

involved at the beginning. The essential literature that has been left by the early Buddhist

communities consists of lists of conditions, or rules, for living in the Spiritual community.

Not philosophy, not enlightenment experiences, not all that juicy stuff, but lists of

conditions: when you could bend down, when you could go for food, in whose presence you

could eat food, what you could eat and when. The Buddhist communities were concerned,

above all, that their members lived straight. The "philosophy" was for those who had

already gotten straight. But today people think philosophy or some formal meditation

process is supposed to get them straight. So they try all the meditation techniques one by

one, like drugs, without fundamentally changing their condition. Thus, Spiritual life fails for

them.

What did Jesus of Nazareth do for people? He really turned his disciples around. He really

worked them over. He changed their lives first. He demanded things of them. He kicked

them around. He told them where they were at. Just so, if this Satsang with Me is to be lived,

real conditions must be established. There must be an entirely new order of life. An entirely

new point of view must be lived. Therefore, the traditional points of view, and the ordinary

human points of view, are not sufficient. They no longer apply. But people want them. They

continue to defend them, even in Satsang with Me. It is ridiculous. They come in pain, and

they wind up defending their state, their dis-ease. Such people often must be returned to

the "Straightener", the ordinary world of suffering and death, until they remember again

that they are suffering. Appropriate conditions must be established in your individual life

and in your community life with others of My devotees. An appropriate order of life must

be established, in which there is room for Absolute Blissfulness. This Absolute Blissfulness

is too Happy for people in the usual condition to tolerate! It is really too much. They cannot

live with It, they cannot function with It, they cannot accept It. They are always looking for

something that is just a little aggravating! Here—this little cramp in the solar plexus—this

is what they are living in. But when the life is only open, when this incredible Force is

flowing through, It churns you, It purifies the life. Then there is nothing at last to be

unhappy about, nothing to think about. The flood of Enjoyment rushes through the body,

dissolves the mind, overwhelms the life. The Real intelligence of conscious life begins to

intensify and function in place of egoic ignorance. And that intelligence has no answers. It

has no questions. That State without answers and without questions is the True State. From

that State, the "creation" of marvels begins.

For years, I would sit down in meditation, and all My own forms would appear—My own

mind, My desires, My experience, My suffering, My feeling, My energies, My this and My

that. But, at some point, it all came to an end. There was no thing, nothing there anymore.

None of that distracted or interested Me. "Meditation" was most perfect, continuous. Then I

began to meet those who first became involved with Me as My devotees. And when I would

sit down for meditation, there would be more of these things again—all of these thoughts,

these feelings, this suffering, this dis-ease, this disharmony, these upsets, this craziness, this

pain, these energies—all of this again. But they were not Mine. They were the "internal"

qualities and life-qualities of My devotees. So I would sit down to meditate, and do the

meditation of other people, other beings. When I would feel it all release, their meditation

was done. And I began to test it, to see if this meditation went on in some more or less

apparent manner for these people who were not with Me. And I found that this meditation

went on with people whom I had not even met. People I saw in dreams and visions would

show up. So the meditation went on. It was the same meditation I had always done. The

same problems were involved, the same subtleties, but the content of the meditation was

not Mine.

After the Events described in The Knee of Listening, there was a period of time when the

universe, the cosmic process, was Meditated in Me. Various siddhis, or Yogic and occult

powers, became manifested. The movement, or process, of the cosmos is a Meditation, a

purifying Event. Everything is Satsang. There is only Satsang. It is Eternal. But after this is

all seen to be so, It must be lived. After the period in which the siddhis appeared, life

became a matter of dealing with existence as it truly is, as Satsang. But new devotees do not

yet know that life is Satsang. They are not yet experiencing that Fullness, that fundamental

Enjoyment, that living Freedom. They are not conscious and responsible at all levels of

conscious life. So a kind of seriousness wants to creep in. The dilemma and the search

would like to reassert itself in the community of My devotees. The temptation arises to turn

Satsang with Me into the search again. But the same thing must occur for others that

occurred for this one. And True Satsang is that process. "Radical" understanding is that

intelligence. And the only means to keep the Way of the Heart from turning into a search is

simply to order it, to put the life of the community and its sadhana into appropriate form.

There is the tendency, even among those in Satsang with Me, to indulge their ordinary

strategy, to be resistive, to be eccentric, to be self-indulgent, to dramatize the avoidance of

relationship. To them it does not seem to involve anything terribly dramatic. It is easy for

them to get involved in that sort of mediocre strategy again, because they are insensitive to

what it does, and to what must be done for it to be straightened again and again. But I am

very well aware of it.

There have been numberless cases where people dramatize their resistance to Satsang, and

thus toward Me. To them it may have appeared very simple. Just a little emotional

resistance, a little bit of craziness off "alone" somewhere. But I felt their "little resistance"

very strongly. In one case the resistance of an individual communicated itself to Me as a

kind of black witchcraft. The individual was not particularly aware of what he was doing,

because it was on such a subtle level, and he had become insensitive to the effects of his

own subtle activity as a result of a lifetime of random self-indulgence in the dramas of

avoidance. When all of that finally got straight in Me, and I felt it dissolve in My meditating

of this person, he suddenly returned, smiling and full of love! "Oh, I have been having a

difficult period, but I feel better now." The symptoms were gone, but there had been no real

experience, no responsibility, no Satsang, no sadhana. His relief was more like magic,

Graceful medicine. But there was no relationship, no Wisdom, no True Condition lived or

restored. Thus, over time, I have begun to require more and more of those who move into

My Company. I require this process of understanding to be lived, awakened, and endured in

them, and I do not merely relieve My devotees difficulties by some vicarious Yogic process

in My Self, however extraordinary that may seem.

Satsang with Me is an actual Condition. It is a relationship. It must be consciously lived. It

must become a matter of responsibility, so that this dramatization of reluctance, of

resistance, of arbitrary craziness, is set aside, undone with Real intelligence. It must not

simply be resisted by My devotee or magically relieved by Me. It must be understood. It

must be obviated in the force of life and intelligence. The Condition of Satsang, the

Condition of relationship to Me, must be consciously and continually lived, so that this

process of understanding can go on, simply, happily. Those who are not prepared to live It

so directly, simply, with some kind of real responsibility, are those who leave on their own.

They become very resistive, then angry, and they leave.

People forget. They forget their own positive experiences. They forget what Satsang is and

has been in their own experience. Temporarily, It becomes clear to them, It becomes

intense, It becomes Real. But then as soon as their drama of tendencies erupts again, for

whatever reasons, this cycle of negativity comes on them again and they want to indulge it

freely. They want to go. They want to play all kinds of games, they want to be negative, they

want to tell you "where its at", they want to get upset, they want to make their upsets

known. They do not want to be responsible for all of that. They are moved to indulge these

urges even though during that entire time when they were happily enjoying Satsang they

heard Me speak again and again about this contraction, this activity that is suffering, this

avoidance of relationship. Even if a person can begin to enjoy insight into his or her

ordinary strategy, and live beyond it, live directly, live Satsang, these cycles of negativity

and destructive, separative tendencies will absolutely occur, again and again. There will be

repetition of urges, again and again, to break with Satsang, to feel all kinds of negative

justifications for not being in Satsang, and to play all kinds of dramas in life as a result.

Therefore, in spite of the tendency for this contraction to arise at all levels, Satsang with Me

must be lived. My devotee must continue to live and enjoy the Condition of Satsang with

Me, even though he or she may feel the rising tendencies, the negativity, the symptoms—

physical, psychic, "internal", in the "external" conditions of life, everywhere. Even so, live

this Satsang, enjoy this Satsang. It is the only principle that is free of all of that, and if you

live the transformative conditions of Satsang with Me, Its intelligence replaces the

unconscious activity of suffering. To live Satsang makes the search and its motivating

dilemma obsolete. But you must live Satsang, and the living of Satsang, even under the

ordinary conditions of suffering, apparent suffering, is sadhana, Real religious and Spiritual

practice. There is no Satsang without sadhana. Satsang with Me is not just a pleasant,

consoling experience that you have this week, and if It is not pleasurable next week then

the entire thing deserves your contempt. Satsang with Me must be lived over time, under

all the conditions that arise. It must become sadhana, the Way of life.

It seems that talking about Satsang tends to make It appear a very complicated process. It is

here! I am here. This relationship is a Real Condition. My human Form is very useful,

because It Lives and Demonstrates the fundamental Condition as relationships with My

devotees. Satsang with Me is Company, proximity, relationship, living Satsang rather than

merely remembering It, listening to Me, so that Truth begins to become obvious, so that

this understanding comes alive. But what is fundamentally important is the fact of this

relationship as a condition, something that you must live from day to day. In that sense it is

not something meditative, something ritualistic, something you must remember,

concentrate on. It is something you must live. You may want to sit there thinking and

picturing, but I shake you on the shoulder and ask you to paint the Ashram wall. Hearing

Me speak to you, and getting up and painting the wall—that is sadhana, that is Satsang with

Me. All the merely mental things you might want to do to try to keep the relationship in

place, to do something about it, to manufacture the relationship—all of that is your own

insane ritual. But true Spiritual life, Satsang with Me, is much more practical than that,

much more direct than that. It must be. I am here.

The True "natural" State is completely without thought. It is prior to thought. It is free of

thought, even while thinking occurs. There is no thought when I am speaking. There is no

thinking going on apart from the speech. No thinking went into your birth. All conditional

manifestation is a spontaneous, free, blissful activity, a "creative" event. Just so, Satsang is

truly operative prior to the mind. So all those means of living Satsang that are purely

mental and motivated are secondary. Satsang with Me is more practical than all of that.

Know that you cannot figure It out. You cannot understand It. You do not understand It.

That is the Truth. Here is Satsang. Live It. Be happy to have discovered that you cannot

figure It out. Some cannot even bear the mental process. When the communication of

understanding comes from without, it puts them to sleep. When it comes from within, it

wakes them up. The more there is of all this mentality, all this conversation, all this

thinking of Spiritual things, the more sleep there is, the more unconsciousness. Too much

talk tends to obstruct the "internal", Real Force. But where the mind is not satisfied, where

the search is not satisfied, Satsang becomes possible, sadhana becomes possible.

People come to Me to have the search satisfied. If I simply do not satisfy the search, they get

angry, and disappointed. Then they leave before the Condition of Satsang has had time even

to begin to do Its work. As a compromise, I must continually explain, again and again, why

it is that I am not satisfying the search. So this long conversation we have had this evening

was only My attempt to explain why it is I do not say anything! But if I did not say anything

in fact, everyone would leave. So it is very difficult to Teach. The more stable you all are, the

less I will have to speak.

DEVOTEE: I find my world, my universe, is becoming more and more oppressively one of

loneliness.

AVATARA ADI DA: Get out of it. Come into this one.

DEVOTEE: I find myself doing a considerable amount of suffering, and at the same time I

am trying to avoid the compulsive activities that I do to relieve it. I find myself trying to

enter a relationship with another, or trying to find some support in another. I am trying to

get something from another. When I sit in Satsang with You, occasionally I go through a

great deal of physical pain. And most of the time my attention is all over the place.

AVATARA ADI DA: You have got to rejoin the human race. Stop spending all this time

contemplating yourself, sitting alone in your room by yourself. Function with human

beings. Do things. That is all. That is all it will take.

DEVOTEE: My impression is that human beings are not real.

AVATARA ADI DA: Join up! You are not going to negate Me.

DEVOTEE: I am caught in the "all one separate thing".

AVATARA ADI DA: I do not care what you are caught in. We are all here. Your suffering is

your own. If you want to play your suffering game, these are the results. Everybody is

playing their own egoic game, and that is yours. I do not have any sympathy for it. You are

turning it on. You want to do it. You like it, as a matter of fact. If you wanted to get out of

that game, it would be a simple matter of turning in the other direction, from separation to

Satsang. You must live the conditions of religious and Spiritual life. If you refuse the

conditions of religious and Spiritual life and continually wander in your own dilemma, you

will Realize nothing. You want to be your own "guru". You want to be already Realized

without doing sadhana, without living the conditions of Truth. If you were doing sadhana,

you would not have a moment to be occupied with your problems. If you were living the

functional conditions of life, you would not have time to reflect on your craziness. You

simply do not function. You find every kind of means to live in a universe of your own. But

there is no universe of your own. "Universe" means "one". There is the universe. But you

are only talking about your own mentality, your own mind-forms. You meditate on that all

the time, instead of living the conditions I Give you. If you do live the conditions, there is

also a crisis. Forms of apparent suffering arise. So what? Everyone must pass through that.

Nobody patted Me on the head when I went through it. Nobody put you into your present

state. No one is keeping you in it. It is a present activity. It is your own activity. It is not

dependent on the past. It is this avoidance of relationship, this contraction. It is time to

realize that you are obsessed. I have always known that you are obsessed. That in itself

never bothered Me. We can begin from there. But you keep discovering it again and again,

always as if it were some new realization. And then you forget it again. That is the problem.

You always forget the very thing of which you are certain. You begin religious and Spiritual

life only when you have already discovered the "terrible truth". Then you can live the

conditions of religious and Spiritual life instead. But your entire being is still devoted to this

separativeness, this compulsive self-meditation. And that is suffering. See that this is so.

Live the Condition of Satsang in a very practical manner. Then Satsang with Me will become

your meditation. Satsang will become the "method" of your Realization.

In fact, Satsang is nothing that you can do to yourself. It is a Condition. It is a Condition that

must be Given to you, Revealed and made available to you by Grace. It is a process that

becomes awakened in your life spontaneously. You simply must live It in a much more

practical manner. Spend no time whatsoever analyzing yourself. No time. I mean no time! I

really mean it. I do not mean just a little time, reading a few books, collecting conceptual

insights. I mean spend no time whatsoever analyzing yourself. That is the very activity that

you are suffering, that self-meditation. Pull yourself into functional existence. Make

everything very practical, very functional. Then you will give room to this Real process.

Then you will see that you are always resorting to yourself, always resorting to this

separate self sense. Realize that and it becomes much simpler to resort to Satsang. You

cannot resort to Satsang in some sort of mediocre mental fashion, unconscious and

believing. You must live It. As a child you did not "believe" in your mother. You lived with

your mother. You lived that condition. You lived all the things that arose in that

relationship from day to day. You lived all the things that were demanded. It is the same

with Satsang, or Real religious and Spiritual life, the living relationship to Me, which also

requires the living of the functional conditions of existence in the universe.

DEVOTEE: I seem to be having many contrasting experiences lately. Sometimes I have near-

ecstasies of intuitive knowledge flowing over me, and my body will become very relaxed.

Then, almost within the very next moment, regular impulses and patterns of everyday life

seem to become really increased, or else I seem to notice them much more concentratedly

than before. What is the significance of this? Is something loosening up in me? Even

relationships with people get very easy and spontaneous, then at other times they get

harder than they were before.

AVATARA ADI DA: There are cycles in the living consciousness. Some of the cycles of

experience are very difficult to observe, and people are not aware of them. Generally, you

are all aware of the seasons. You are commonly aware of the cycle of climate. You are

aware of the cycle of night and day. You are at least vaguely aware of the phases of the

moon. You are made aware of social cycles, such as elections, holidays, weekends. But there

are also subtle cycles in the process of consciousness and conscious life. The "internal"

patterns may seem random, but everyone is aware that they go through "phases", or

periods of "bad days" and "good days". Individuals know they do this. They know they have

different kinds of characteristic states. But they do not commonly see a pattern to these

states. In fact, there is such a pattern. There is a characteristic pattern of conscious

experience in everyone, as regular as the seasons. But it is essentially an individual pattern,

like fingerprints.

The Force that Manifests in Satsang tends to intensify the characteristic cycles of the living

consciousness. One of the first things I began to observe in this process, as I lived in Satsang

with One Who was Guru to Me, was how the cycle of My own experience varied between

"light" and "heavy". The "good day-bad day" sort of thing. I did not map it out on a calendar,

but I began to become aware that I was moving through patterns of state and life-

consciousness that manifested as "pulses", phases, or cycles, like the heartbeat. It was not

that under certain "external" circumstances I would react with a "bad" mood, or, under

others, with a "good" mood There was a certain underlying heaviness characteristic of My

state at times, and a lightness at others, regardless of circumstances. As this process

continued to reveal itself, I began to observe there was a certain regularity to its patterns.

And I also began to observe how the patterns were modified by this process of Satsang.

At first I spent long periods of time in a kind of negative and mediocre condition. I

commonly approached My Guru in such states. And, occasionally, I would suddenly feel

good, or released. In time, I began to discover that these periods of release, or of no

contraction, were becoming a little more frequent, a little more intense, a little more

absorbing. The negative pattern, the lower end of this curve, was becoming less intense,

more bearable. These crisis periods began to become interesting to Me. Thus, various

changes began to occur in the cycle of consciousness when it was brought into the

Condition of Satsang. In meditation, when I was sitting in Satsang, sitting with My Guru, the

so-called "internal" processes, the subtle psycho-physical processes, were intensified. This

is the Work of the Force of God in Satsang.

I noticed that when the Force of Satsang was most intense, these highs and lows were most

intense. And as that Force continued to intensify, the alternations of these highs and lows

became more rapid. What you are describing is just such a development of sensitivity to

this cycle of consciousness. The pattern is intensified and revealed in Satsang, so that,

without apparent cause, experience appears to alternate arbitrarily between different and

opposite values, or qualities.

There is a distinctive mood which is attained when this process of intensified alternation

becomes perfectly rapid. This is the Yogic "ananda", or "bliss", which arises whenever the

speed of the cycle of high and low becomes absolute. The Saint or Sage is one in whom

these alternations have become so rapid that he or she is always already essentially Happy.

The Most Perfectly Realized individual, the one who understands most perfectly, is one in

whom the cycle of consciousness has attained the speed of light. Therefore, as this process

of Satsang continues in you, you will observe the movement of the pattern of your

existence. Its cycles are as much a functional manifestation as your breathing. The

"internal" life of the usual individual is not the sort of carefree, aesthetic, spontaneous

sublimity that people like to imagine. The "internal" life is as ordered, as regular, as

mechanistic, as organic, as the "external" universe. There is nothing arbitrary about your

experience. It is simply that you have not learned to observe your experience, you have not

become subtle in your ability to observe what is arising. But the more subtle you become in

your capability to observe, the more you see the patterns, "internal" and "external".

The arising of this subtlety, or sensitivity, is a good sign. You observe your tendency to

identify with the stream of your own consciousness, your tendency to believe you are your

own "think" apparatus. When this sensitivity arises, the "internal" pattern is already

ceasing to be so much a compulsive activity. Then it is showing itself to you. It

demonstrates itself to be something as functionally "external" as a hand. It is not something

with which you are identical, but a process that is arising spontaneously, much the same as

your hand. So the compulsive tendency to identify with the movement of ordinary

consciousness is beginning to ease just at the moment you seem to suffer it most.

DEVOTEE: The other day I heard You say something that suddenly seemed to take on a lot

of meaning for me. It seemed to bring about a revelation. It seemed to be a combination of

the Force I feel in Satsang with You and listening to what You were saying.

AVATARA ADI DA: There are many means generated in the Way of the Heart. All the events

that are necessary occur, and they all occur appropriately. That is why I do speak at times.

There is a function for it—something is served by My speaking in Satsang. But I do not

always speak. Then Satsang continues wordlessly, as a subtle process. Just so, I do not only

speak or else sit in silence. I also do things with people. And apart from what I apparently

do in a personal manner with you, you all have different kinds of contact with the Influence

and effects of My Work, different experiences, different exposures to all My forms of

operation. Although the complex of these things may seem to you to be somewhat

arbitrary, it is actually a manifested and exquisitely intelligent design. It is not arbitrary.

Nothing happens arbitrarily to those who live Truth. Your dreams are not arbitrary. Your

dreams are a very intelligent process. But if you think of them while in the waking state,

you cannot make real sense out of them. All experience is of that same nature. It is all a

subtle design, a spontaneous, paradoxical process. You were brought to consider what I

said, just as you were brought to Satsang Itself. Many things combined at that moment to

produce this "revelation". I believe it is said in the New Testament: "Everything works

together for the good of those who love God." This bit of Biblical wisdom pertains also to

the process, or quality, of Satsang. Everything happens appropriately, even for those who

live in ignorance of Truth. It is just that, apart from Satsang, apart from the life of Truth, the

appropriate thing that happens is suffering and death! When Satsang begins as a Real

process, you may begin to observe the appropriateness of all experience. Not a breath is

spent outside of Satsang once It begins. And all of the possible ranges of events, from the

gross, apparently "external" world to your reactions to it, including your thoughts, and all

things that happen to you within the world, within the waking state, in dreams, while

sleeping—everywhere everything combines for the sake of the Truth.

Until this begins to become obvious to you, you can believe it or not. It really has no

importance until you begin to observe it. And people do begin to observe it in Satsang with

Me. There was a time in My own Life when I began to see there was no difference

whatsoever between My "internal" life and My "external" life: There is but one process

going on everywhere and always. The world is the psyche The world is founded in the

psyche, or the root of the world is essentially of the same nature as the psyche. The entire

process is a single event. Everything is moving together as a single design with a single

intent. Nothing happens to you that is not appropriate. All events serve Truth. It is only that

when you begin consciously to serve Truth, events themselves take on more and more the

quality of Truth. You will begin to experience the coincidence, or simultaneity, of "within"

and "without". You will begin to observe that this Satsang is actually Alive, that It has

somehow taken over the universe.

Of course, people are ordinarily attached to their subjective identity, that force they

separately identify as themselves. And they have all kinds of bad relations with the world.

The seeker typically likes the concept that appears in many of the worlds Scriptures which

says that Truth is within you, God is within you, all Power is within you. But this idea just

reinforces the tendency of Narcissus, this subjective tendency, this inward-turning, this

self-contraction. The Truth is no more within you than It is in the lamp shade. The Truth is

everywhere and no "where". It is not especially within you, nor is It especially without.

There is Truth.

DEVOTEE: It would seem that except for the fact of fear my life would have everything it

could possibly want. It appears to me that fear is the underlying fabric that is shot through

my entire life. It is almost omnipresent, and it is representative to me of all of the

selfishness, all of the self-obsession, and all of the self-seeking that exists. I make such

desperate demands upon life. It is a continual, desperate demand. It is as if I am continually

dying moment by moment. And when those demands are not met, or if I am afraid that

what I already have will be taken away, it is always one form or another of that fear. I am

going through a period when all of this has been more active. It seems to me that there is

some kind of pernicious bullshit going on, and that I actually want it. I go through all the

self-torture games, and when I come out the other side I say: "What was that all about?"

And then it starts all over again.

AVATARA ADI DA: This "I" that you have mentioned several times just now is a sort of post

on which you hang all these experiences. It seems to be in the center of it somehow. "Ego"

means "I"—the self-reference, the implied self, this separate-self concept. One could call

that self-reference, or self-image, the "ego". But "ego" is not essentially an entity or a

concept. "Ego" is an activity. It is the activity of the avoidance of relationship. Just as the

separate "I", the self-concept, the self-image, is an expression of this activity that is the ego,

fear is also the ego. Fear is the very mood, the "nature", of the ego. It is said in the

Upanishads: "It is from an other that fear arises." As soon as there is an other, as soon as

this separative act has taken place in any sense whatsoever, from that instant there is fear.

Then life is fear. Conscious awareness is fear. It is not that you are afraid. Fear is your

necessary attribute, your very "body". Fear is the ego. As long as you persist in your present

ego-bound condition and drama, fear will continually be the mood that you discover.

Whenever you fail to be distracted, you will fall into this chronic state, this sense of your

separate self, which is fear. Where there is separation, there can only be fear. You have

broken the Current of life, of Real and Original Existence, the Process of the Heart. You have

contracted the Field of Consciousness. You have made it impossible for the Force of

Existence to flow between this process of contraction, this "ego", and everything from

which it differentiates itself. Therefore, everything outside this apparently separate "self"

becomes fearful, frightening, other. And when you are being afraid, you are simply

meditating on the quality of your separated existence. If you try to get rid of fear, it is

impossible. Because the "you" trying to get rid of this thing is that fear. So the search is

futile.

At some point you fall into your chronic state, this fear, this avoidance of relationship. And

when you have fallen into it under the conditions of Satsang with Me, this quickening, this

insight, awakens. And this insight, this understanding, this re-cognition of which I speak, is

the obviation of "ego", the separate self sense, which is fear. Only understanding is without

fear. Only one who understands is fearless. Only one who understands is selfless. Only such

a one lives always prior to fear. Until then you are dramatizing the form of the separate self,

you are living it, and so you are suffering its very condition. You must become sensitive.

You must become essentially aware of the conditions that you bring about through the

activity that is the ego. When your life begins to fail, you begin to become aware of the

condition that is the ego. Therefore, there must necessarily be a crisis. Spiritual life must

involve this falling into the chronic state, and "radically" comprehending it. The Force of

Satsang with Me makes this passage possible, because if you simply fell into your fear, you

would go mad. The random tastes of fear are what constantly disturb the form of life. But

Satsang is the Condition of Truth. The Force of Satsang, the Consciousness and Intelligence

of Satsang, the Condition of Satsang, is already Free of this contraction, this separate self,

this fear.

The greatest of the Hindu traditions aspire to "turiya, the "fourth State"—beyond waking,

dreaming, and deep sleep, and beyond fear—wherein they may feel that Fullness, that Ease,

that Enjoyment, and all of the Spiritual qualities, all the Spiritual events, generated as a

spontaneous happening in the Company of the Guru. Just so, those who live Satsang with

Me already live this Condition that is without fear, without separated self, without the

function of ego, the chronic avoidance of relationship. They Enjoy that unreasonable

Happiness, that Love-Blissfulness, that is the "mood" of Truth. But those who do not resort

to Satsang with Me, who only resort continually to the state they suffer apart from Satsang,

find their fear only intensified in My Company. They find that "ego" is intensified, that the

dilemma, the problems, and the search are intensified, that their egoic ignorance is

intensified, and that all of it becomes frightening, and unbearable. That is why periodically

you see people storming out of the community of My devotees, without any apparent

reason. Nothing has "happened" to them. I have not done anything to them. Nothing has

really occurred except the process of Satsang Itself. That is what disturbs these angry, self-

obsessed ones who renounce My Company and My Teaching. Those who have not suffered

their own condition enough, and who have not seen its perfect failure, are wise to avoid

Satsang with Me. Because Satsang is a fire! This Ashram is not a place where we talk

"philosophy". There is a Living Force enacted here. It is the Living Force of Consciousness

Itself. That is What Satsang is all about. And those who arbitrarily pile on, not mindful of

the conditions, wind up having to separate themselves very aggressively, with all kinds of

righteousness. The Force of Satsang with Me simply acts to intensify their separativeness.

But one who has really seen the failure of his or her search, who can somehow

spontaneously resort to the Condition of Satsang, experiences that unreasonable

Happiness. Thus, Satsang becomes the Condition wherein the form of suffering, this

contraction, this fear, this ego, all of the elements of suffering and dilemma, are dissolved in

a spontaneous, natural, appropriate order.

Certainly one must also suffer the intensity of this process of ego-dissolution, including

periods of apparent crisis, but it will always be somehow bearable, always intelligent with

Truth, always something for which one has the capability. That is why many who have

found a Guru have said that, at some point, they gave up all interest in salvation. They were

no longer concerned for liberation, heaven, and healing, or even moved to go through any

special "Spiritual" processes or the classic round of Spiritual experiences. They lost their

interest in all of that. They became unreasonably happy only, and they forgot to seek

beyond the Gurus Feet. The living Guru is a specific Function that arises again and again in

the worlds. People can indulge any kind of illusion with a dead Guru, Master, or Savior, or

with a symbolic image, a God they only believe in. People are very willing to do anything

they like, and then forgive themselves with the same liberal attitude. They want God, or

Truth, to stay in Its own Place. But the living Guru is a Condition to be lived with. The living

Guru establishes conditions in the world. Such a one remains continuously mindful of the

devotee and of the process that the devotee is going through. And the Guru uses every kind

of ordinary and extraordinary means to always re-establish the connection.

Real religious and Spiritual life involves a Great Condition Given to you and many

conditions demanded of you. The Great Condition and the real conditions of religious and

Spiritual life are never anything that you particularly want to assume on your own. People

are capable of believing all kinds of things on their own, and of arbitrarily generating what

they think is sadhana, or the religious and Spiritual life. But it is always just another

expression of their ordinary or usual state. It does nothing, fundamentally, to their ego-

bound condition. The matter of Truth is entirely academic until the Truth Communicates

Itself to you, until the Truth takes you over, until the Truth does the sadhana and "creates"

the conditions for transformation. So the Truth must find some means to Communicate

Itself as a Function in specific relationship to you. Therefore, the human Guru is the

appropriate Means, and that is why the human Guru exists, that is why I have Come.

DEVOTEE: Why and how did we fall into this condition, this miserable condition?

AVATARA ADI DA: People like to fabricate mythologies. You would like to hear some sort of

"creation" myth about this suffering, or some sort of philosophy that explains why it came

about. When something is "explained", when its "name" is known, then you feel free to

forget or exploit it. But it did not "come about". It is presently happening. It is not a matter

of something that happened. There is nothing hidden in time or space that is making this

affair of suffering occur. It is not happening as a result of anything. It is a spontaneous,

present activity for which you are entirely responsible. So, truly, it does not make any sense

to try to describe some means or other by which it might have come about.

I have said, however, that there is a sense in which this specific activity that is your

suffering, this contraction, is a reaction to life, to conditionally manifested existence. For

every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The entire event of the manifested, or

conditional, cosmos arises as a spontaneous event, a single event. The universe is the

original action. But for every action there is necessarily an equal and opposite reaction. So

this process of which I have been speaking is, in a sense, the reaction to conditionally

manifested life.

A baby is not born with a concrete sense of a separate life in the world. A baby is not able

even to differentiate its body from the other movements around it. Everything is all one

massive sensation. A baby does not differentiate. A baby does not, for all practical

purposes, differentiate itself as an entity from any other individual, or even from the world

itself. Only when the baby learns to react to life does it begin to "create" an identity that

functions in life. And if the baby has no capability to react, it will have no capability for

individual life. A human organism that has no capability to react is catatonic,. a vegetable",

or else dead. A catatonic has many of the apparent attributes that are assigned to the

Realized individual. The catatonic is selfless, fearless, but he or she is obviously not "alive",

not conscious, functioning, and sane. Therefore, simply to go about trying to discover how

not to react is obviously not the cure. To try not to react to your conditionally manifested

existence at this moment is not the Way of Truth. Yet people have elaborated vast

traditional methods of "realization" that are fundamentally only attempts not to react. They

try to de-condition themselves, to become detached, to become self-less. But the Truth is

not a matter of compulsively and strategically suppressing any form of action, even if that

action is the re-action to something else.

Truth is in the spontaneous re-cognition, or knowing again, of an activity in the midst of

that activity. Therefore, one who understands is not in a catatonic state. Understanding is

not itself characterized by any trance or any conditional Yogic state. Understanding is not

itself an other state. The state of one who understands may appear to be extra-ordinary

from the point of view of the usual man or woman. But actually one who understands is

entirely ordinary, conformed to the realm of the conditionally manifested. While living in

this ordinary manner, he or she Enjoys the Perfect Condition That Is Real God, or Truth.

Therefore, the life of one who understands is a paradox. But the seeker and the attainments

of the seeker are not paradoxical. They are always dimensionless and winded to a point.

The seeker is always turned to specific goals, specific states. They may be complex and

incomprehensible, but they are always as specific and mind-based as a bowling trophy.

Truth Itself is not identified with a state, with an experience, nor with the avoidance of any

state or any experience, neither with the dissociation or forceful separation from any state

or experience, nor with the suppression of it. Truth is not even identical to the suppression

of thought. In one who understands, everything continues to arise, but coincident with

everything that arises there is Perfect Intuition of the Real. One who understands

perpetually, spontaneously, under all conditions, intuits the Real. Such a one intuits the

Real in the most "radical" sense, without separation. Such a one requires no special

condition for Realization. The Realization of such a one does not only exist when that one is

in certain meditative moods, only when that one is quiet, only when that one is performing

certain Spiritual functions, or only when that one is talking about certain Spiritual things.

The Realization of such a one is spontaneous, absolute, continuous. Therefore, religious and

Spiritual life in the form it is lived in My Company is a span of Conscious adventure,

generated in the relationship to Me as the Divinely Self-Realized Siddha-Guru, and summed

up in the Perfect Enjoyment of Which I am the Evidence, the Demonstration, and the Very

Form.

The Method of the Siddhas

"No One Survives Beyond That Moment" From The Method of the Siddhas - 1978

Author(s): Adi Da Samraj

CHAPTER 12

 

No One Survives Beyond That Moment

DEVOTEE: Are we evolving?

 

FRANKLIN: What do you think?

DEVOTEE: I think we are evolving toward the astral.

FRANKLIN: What is so good about "astral"?

DEVOTEE: Well, nothing. But as far as evolution goes, there is a constant change. Is it

constant change? Where are we going? What is it doing for us? What is it?

FRANKLIN: Is it?

DEVOTEE: Well, it seems to be, but I am in a dilemma. Is evolution part of the dilemma?

FRANKLIN: There is this dilemma.

DEVOTEE: There is dilemma. Yes. Then it is part of the dilemma.

FRANKLIN: What is the question?

DEVOTEE: Now, Im really confused.

FRANKLIN: Are you talking about anything? In this concern for "evolution," are you really

talking about something?

DEVOTEE: I don't really understand what evolution is, or even if there is evolution.

FRANKLIN: That is the truth.

DEVOTEE: There is no evolution?

FRANKLIN: That you don't know.

DEVOTEE: Yes.

FRANKLIN: What you know is this dilemma, this confusion, this ignorance about your own

propositions. That is the truth. That is your experience. This "evolution" doesn't really exist

as an experience. You are not certain of it, of its existence, of its quality, of its nature, of its

direction, of its relation to you. You know nothing whatsoever about it. Why are we talking

about it?

The truth is that you are confused. There is this dilemma. There is suffering. Questions

about "evolution" are completely beside the point. Such questions, for the time being, are

ways of drawing attention away from your actual state, of distracting yourself from that

confusion, temporarily. We could take this symbolic category of "evolution," and we could

talk about it from many different points of view. We could create all kinds of mind-forms

with it. But after we have said it all, nothing will have been added in the way of real

experience, and you will remain in the same state you were in when you asked the

question.

So this "evolution" question doesn't represent anything significant. It is not your real

question. The real question is your actual state. That is the question. That is the question

you are truly asking, that you are always asking. You present your very life to the world in

the form of a question. You are this real question. But you conceal it from consciousness.

Therefore, it exists only as your chronic state , your suffering, your search, your dilemma.

Ordinarily a man does not ask his real question. He only lives it and performs it as seeking,

suffering and death. Sadhana, or real spiritual practice in relation to the Guru, is the means

whereby men become conscious of their real questions.

Just so, the "answer" to your real question has nothing whatever to do with evolution, or

any other arbitrary "topic" the mind can select. The true answer is not in the form of a

response to a symbolic question. The true answer must be a radical transformation of your

state. That is the answer to your question. And if this state that you are always in, this

confusion, this dilemma, is utterly, radically overcome, then the nature of this whole

appearance of life and world also will become obvious. The answer of the Guru to his

devotee comes through the discipline of real conditions, demands for functional action, the

sadhana which is always generated in his company.

There is absolutely no point whatsoever in talking about evolution. It is an arbitrary

distraction you have selected from the pattern of your own movements. You have chosen it

from the moving confusion of your ordinary state. That confusion is our genuine concern in

these talks. All our questions are forms of this dilemma, this state. Every question is in the

form of a dilemma, and every verbal or mental dilemma is an expression of an underlying

state that shapes every moment of the usual life. The arbitrary creation of "questions," of

artifices to occupy the mind, is a way of distraction from this state. It is a form of self-

indulgence. To answer such questions is only to serve bewilderment, unconsciousness,

fear, ignorance and all the qualities of seeking and suffering. I know that you have been

upset for several days, crazy with this whole movement in yourself, and now you want to

talk about evolution. What has that got to do with anything? This suffering that is begun

must continue. The death must occur.

DEVOTEE: It just goes on and on and on. It never seems to stop.

FRANKLIN: The death. That is what you want to get away from. You would "evolve" to the

astral world, and so escape this necessary death. There is no elimination of death, no

ultimate avoidance of death. You are trying to prevent death, this very crisis, by occupying

yourself with symbolic questions.

DEVOTEE: But that's the only answer, that death. Why don't we? Why do we keep fighting

and fighting?

FRANKLIN: Keep fighting what?

DEVOTEE: This thing. We know we are fighting it, and, yet, we cant help it. Why are we

avoiding it? How do we get out of it?

FRANKLIN: This desire is another form of that same avoidance. But it has already begun.

This transformation, this conflict, this crisis has begun in you. It has become intensified.

You are beginning to find your real question. It is your death. That is the significant event.

There is no distraction from it. There is no consolation for it. But it is true and real.

Evolution can make no difference. Translation to the astral plane can make no difference.

None of that can change this chronic state. This crisis would still be necessary, no matter

where in all the worlds you happened to appear. This crisis is the peculiar event of all life.

Going to the astral plane does not change that necessity. Intelligence is still required.

This question about evolution represents a form of "concern," a search. That is what is

communicated to me in the form of your question. It has no real content other than that. It

is only because this crisis is occurring that you have the least interest in evolution. But for

one who is dying there is no evolution. What does he care whether the seven hundred

billion that remain behind him are transformed into ducks or luminous red astral bodies?

His death is the only remaining content of his life. From the point of view of his experience,

there is no evolution. There is only sudden death. But this death is true, it is the real

process. So it is worth seeing, worth living, because this real death of which I speak is the

very crisis of consciousness that serves both Truth and life.

One who awakens is not concerned for the destiny of those who appeared along with him

in his dream. There is no such destiny, there is no one. All that appears in the universal

form or great cosmic process is a spontaneous display, like the conditions that appear in

dreams. All of that goes on in any case. But now you are beginning to see this more

fundamental condition underlying your adventure of distraction in the cosmic event. In the

past you did not see it, or know it for what it was. To the degree you felt it at all, it was a

subtle sensation, a discomfort, a sort of formless craziness, a wildness, but now you are

beginning to know what it really is. Now you are beginning to know it as your chronic state.

But you will come to recognize it as your own activity. You are beginning to be aware of it

more or less continually. That continuous awareness is the self-purifying sadhana of real

spiritual life.

DEVOTEE: Even one who comes to reside in the Heart has patterns and rules which he has

to follow on his journey. Otherwise, certain things wont open. There are rules which he

cant switch away. So there is in fact a pattern, isn't there?

FRANKLIN: A pattern of what?

DEVOTEE: By which the universe is ordered. Even if a person comes from any state, seeks

the light, and finally resides in the Heart, he must go by certain signs along the way. It is

different for each person, but still there are rules.

FRANKLIN: If they are different, what is this specific pattern?

DEVOTEE: There isn't one that fits everyone, but still there are patterns existing.

FRANKLIN: Of course, there are apparent patterns in life. But the Heart is not someplace

else. The Heart is not a point separate from any other place. It is not in a certain direction. It

is not the end of any particular road. It is not the goal. If you are speaking of the "causal"

center, the heart-center on the right side of the chest, it is indeed a point, a place, a psycho-

physical sensation. But the true Heart is another word for the one, unqualified Reality.

DEVOTEE: That becomes true, once you realize it. But between the time you know it and

the time you are only approaching it, there are still patterns.

FRANKLIN: They are your own patterns. They are your apparent condition. They are the

subtle forms of cognition which help to fabricate the dilemma and the search, prior to the

enjoyment of the Heart, which is radical understanding. But in Satsang, the relationship to

the man of understanding, or the Guru, the Heart establishes a living relationship with the

individual, and then it no longer makes any difference to him what the patterns are. The

patterns are simply observed from that moment. Another kind of condition is lived, and so

these patterns become obsolete. They fall away, until only the Heart stands out. From the

point of view of the true disciple, there is no significance to the patterns. There is no

significance . "Significance" is your dilemma. It is the pattern of your own mind-forms. That

is the only thing that obstructs perfect consciousness. It is neither external nor internal. All

that arises is only a modification of your own ultimate nature and condition. When this is

perfectly understood, the enjoyment realized in understanding is called the "Heart." There

is no subjective, no objective, no external, no universe, no astral world, from the point of

view of the Heart. All such phenomena are simply apparent modifications of the Heart.

Until a man truly enters into Satsang with his Guru, he is very concerned about the way,

about this pattern of his own growth and experience, his own transformation, his own

liberation. But when he enters into the condition of Satsang, his concerns, his path, his

patterns become obsolete. All of that is simply not supported. He simply lives the condition

and conditions of relationship generated in his Gums company, and the patterns subside.

They become obsolete, without function. Therefore, concern for those patterns is more

evidence of the search, of this fundamental dilemma.

All movements within the cosmic and universal form are movements within the cosmic and

universal form. No movement implies or leads to Reality. All movements lead to terminals

within the great form itself, to more states, more change, more phenomena. They do not in

any way in themselves obviate the dilemma that is suffering. A man who assumes that

action will lead, to the Self has performed an act in consciousness that is not in itself true.

Truth is in the re-cognition of motivation and action.

We are always already "there." This is it. There is no dilemma. There is only one Reality,

presently. It is not somewhere else. It is not hidden within us, nor behind the world. It is

only obvious. Satsang is the condition of Reality, consciously lived. It is lived to you, within

you, as you, along with you. It is that real condition lived as life, as a pressure upon the

disciple. The Guru lives it to him, until it begins to become obvious, until it begins to

become intelligent in him. But all he will have realized, after all, is the obvious. The nature

of the rising event, the apparent condition, becomes clear. It becomes obvious to him that

his dilemma is his own activity. He sees that in fact there is no dilemma. There is nothing

about the present that is not Truth.

Satsang is the real condition. It is the condition of Truth. It is the condition of conscious

relationship to the Guru. When a person enters into it consciously, with any degree of

clarity, he has begun to live under the conditions that are Truth. And that is the entire

process. That is spiritual life, real life. Everything else is an extension, another reflection of

a mans search, his dilemma, his dis-ease. When this real condition is truly lived, whatever

arises tends to be consumed.

DEVOTEE: Is it within the power of ones will to remain in the condition of Satsang?

FRANKLIN: Apparently not. An individual can maintain himself responsibly in the company

of his Guru, and fulfill the specific demands imposed on him by his Guru. But to live the

conscious condition of relationship, even with ones Guru, depends on the subtle grace of

that condition itself.

Every man tends to live apart, separately, constantly. Even when he begins to sense the

unique presence of one who lives as the Heart, he resists and defends himself. He covers up

his disability, his discomfort, his dilemma. He approaches such a one with argumentation,

self-defense, the endless formulations of his own mind, and with suggestions that maybe

"its all right anyway." He continues to do his number, assuming the Guru is a captured

audience for his act. When he overcomes all of that only a little bit, he begins to "hunt" the

Guru, seeking to "find him out," and justify independence from the Guru through various

kinds of moral and philosophical righteousness. He penalizes the Guru, he resists him, he

plays with him, he creates dramas with him, he goes away, he comes back, he teases his

Guru. All of this because the principle of ordinary life is the avoidance of relationship, the

"ego," the activity of separation.

But when a man enters into real and conscious Satsang with one who lives as the Heart, he

no longer has this activity or separate self as his primary instrument. The activity that is the

"ego" has become obsolete. It may continue to arise and obsess him, but Satsang has

become his condition. The process of the Heart itself, the Guru as Truth, performs his

sadhana and holds on to him. The Guru creates a drama within the drama of his devotee.

This subtle drama or grace makes it possible for the devotee to maintain his sadhana, the

living practice of his connection. This grace looks forward to the time when the devotee

becomes responsible enough to assume that relationship fully and consciously, as his

responsibility, as his real condition. Then he is given responsibilities that will test him,

prove him, and awaken in him all the qualities of a true disciple.

DEVOTEE: What are the responsibilities of a person who lives in the condition of Truth?

For years I've fluctuated between everything from total self-indulgence to forty-day fasts

and found basically an inability to eat moderately. I don't think that this is a responsible

thing to do. And yet its inappropriate to be always compulsively responsible. But at the

same time, if I don't eat properly I become less conscious. I sleep more. I get spaced out.

FRANKLIN: The point of view that you are expressing is the point of view of dilemma, of

suffering, which has nothing to do with Truth. It is this very condition that men try to

destroy by all means. Excessive fasting or eating, self-indulgence of all kinds, deprivation of

all kinds, turning inward, turning outward, ascetic practices, "ordinary" practices, all of

these are only means to overcome the fundamental sense of dilemma and suffering. None

of that has anything to do with illumination or Truth. All of that is suffering,

The question for such a one is not how to become responsible. That is not his real question.

His real question is the state that he is in. And the real answer is not in the form of a

response to verbal dilemmas, or even apparent life-dilemmas. The answer is the obviation

of this state. A man will seek by all means to be free of the dilemma as it appears to him,

until all the forms of his seeking, all of which are reactions to the subtle condition or

dilemma that is his suffering, cease to occupy him. He comes to the point where the force of

his life is no longer fully captured by his search. He knows that his search is failing, that his

search does not produce salvation. He falls from ordinary fascination into a crisis, a form of

despair, of doubt. At that point, he has become available for Satsang, for that relationship

which is spiritual life.

Satsang is the answer. It is that process and condition wherein the dilemma is undone. Not

any spoken word, but that process itself which is enjoyed in relationship to the living Heart,

is the "answer." It is not in the form of a method, another technique, or a conceptual system

that applies to your peculiar ideas of your state. The answer is in the form of the force of

Truth, and it undermines that very structure in consciousness that supports your whole

search. This becomes a real possibility only when a man has begun to suffer from his

search, when he has begun to sense its failure, when he is no longer totally occupied by it.

Then he becomes available to Guru, to Satsang. And Satsang is non-support of his dilemma,

non-support of his search.

In Satsang, all a mans techniques fall away, all fascination with his search subsides, all his

methods become comic. His whole life ceases to obsess him. His need for liberation no

longer interests him. His life becomes one of the enjoyment of Truth, the enjoyment of

Guru, until the whole form of consciousness in which he ordinarily rests is utterly

dissolved. In Satsang, an entirely new and living form of intelligence replaces a mans

ordinary strategic mentality.

Some individuals have become involved in the most incredible adventure of spiritual

technique. They are concerned with all kinds of technique. There are techniques of living,

techniques of subjective and psychological states, the seekers meditation, strategic diet,

and all the rest. Such individuals come to Satsang in the moods of spirituality and

philosophy. Others are more "ordinary." They come to it after the equally traditional self-

indulgent life. Everyone comes to Satsang in the midst of a different form of adventure. All

come with the same fundamental dilemma, but all communicate it through different

artifices, through the form of a peculiar adventure. In essence, all adventures are a

description of the same state: this contraction, this subtle dis-ease, the avoidance of

relationship. That is so. That is the experience.

From the point of view of the real question, the actual dilemma, a man is happy to enter

into Satsang. Spiritual life for such a one is, happily, not a technique, a method, a remedy, or

a path. Spiritual life is a relationship. It has always been so. Nothing apart from the

relationship to the Guru is offered. Relationship itself is the principle and condition of life.

The relationship to the Guru is the single principle of sadhana, the single medium of Truth,

the one "method" that arises in the life of the disciple. It is the condition and the medium

through which all things come that are appropriate for the spiritual life of the disciple. And

they come spontaneously, as a grace. In Satsang a man has become available to Truth itself,

Reality itself, for his illumination. Until that point, he has been too occupied to be illumined.

First he must fall from search and fascination into the crisis of his ordinary condition.

The most difficult thing for a man to achieve is ordinariness. But the primary condition of

Satsang, of true life, is the realization of ordinariness. Men are extremely inventive,

eminently capable of the extraordinary, the adventure, the search. But the ordinary, what

simply is the case, what already is the case, is extremely difficult, because of the principle of

action by which all men create their lives. When Satsang begins for a man, when it becomes

his real alternative, he suddenly becomes capable of ordinariness, of simplicity. It simply

becomes appropriate. It is not the least connected with anything compulsive, anything like

the discipline which a seeker might embrace. The functional simplicity of the disciple is

only obvious and natural to him, because action has been released from its connection with

the search for Truth, liberation and the like. Anything that is pictured as a means to Truth

belongs to the adventure of seeking and its dilemma. It is part of the adventure of extra-

ordinariness.

When a man is released from the pursuit of Truth, he simply lives it. He lives Satsang as the

condition of life. All his ordinary functions become truly ordinary when he is released from

the need to realize Truth. In Satsang, a mans ordinary, functional life becomes realizable,

usable. There is no reason why diet should be manipulated as a means to Truth. Nor should

it be considered an obstruction to Truth. The ingestion of food has nothing whatever to do

with Truth. Neither food-obsession nor food-righteousness is the way of Truth.

DEVOTEE: What it seems to have to do with is my being in a state where Im willing to put

my attention on the Truth. If, for example, I am overeating or taking drugs I will not be in a

condition to put my attention on Truth.

FRANKLIN: You cannot put your attention on Truth in any case. Truth is not an "object." It

only appears to be an object from the point of view of the same search that motivates you

to indulge yourself and also not to indulge yourself. Truth cannot be concentrated upon

even by a mind that is clear and free. It cant be "noticed." It is not an object. It doesn't

appear within your view. It already includes you and your points of view.

DEVOTEE: Instead of the term "attention on Truth," could we say "to experience more

consciously"?

FRANKLIN: Experiencing has nothing to do with Truth. Truth cannot be experienced, nor is

it an experience. Neither is Truth experience itself. All these expressions you have used

have the same form. As far as Truth goes, there is nothing to be said about it in this sense.

No formal communication is the equivalent of it. All of the descriptions you might give of

the peculiar form of your adventure have the same form, the same structure. Indeed, your

questions are a strategy whereby you prevent the realization of your actual condition. Your

concerns are a way to avoid self-recognition.

Truth always appears to the seeker as a kind of alternative . But Truth is not an alternative.

Truth is your very consciousness, your very nature, your very condition. It cannot be

concentrated upon. It is not an object. It is not something in which you can become

interested. It is not something from which you can be distracted. Your interests, your

distractions, your noticings, your experiencing's are all expressions or modifications of the

fundamental Reality. But you are not living them as such. Therefore, you are constantly

obsessed with alternatives, with particular distractions, noticings and experiencing's.

Alternatives are all that you have.

When you no longer have any alternatives, when the search has died, then Truth becomes

your real possibility. But Truth is not an alternative. It is not in the form of an answer to a

specific question. It is not something perceived. It is not something that serves you, the

subject. It is not something that liberates you as a separate person. It has nothing to do with

you as a separate one. It cannot be enjoyed by you as a separate one. Truth is enjoyed only

in the instant of non-separation, of perfect equality with Truth.

There is no state equivalent to Truth. Every state is only a secondary condition. There are

experiences and states described in the traditional spiritual paths that are identified with

Truth or Reality itself. Some traditions say Truth is equal to or necessarily coincident with a

vision of Krishna in his blue form. For others, Truth must be samadhi in the form of yogic

trance, either with visions or without the least trace of form, objective or subjective. Still

others equate Truth with a concentrated return of the vital force to the sahasrar, a vision of

Light, or some other esoteric signal of Deity. But all of these are forms of experience. They

may be sublime, subtle, but they appear only as alternatives to other "ordinary"

experiences. No experience is Truth. And no experience is the sign of Truth, the "symptom"

of Truth, or its necessary accompaniment.

Truth is that which stands out as Reality where there is re-cognition of the whole process

of experience, where there is absolute vanishing of identification with alternatives, the

whole scheme of conscious life. Therefore, it involves the most radical understanding, even

of that which is extraordinary. Until that occurs, the usual and the great events in life are

your fascination. It is the memory of experiences, ones own modifications as the result of

experience, that creates the goals of seeking. Impressions in the form of tendencies

continue to fascinate a man and obsess him with the notion that life is made of alternatives,

so that all the usual man is doing is playing this drama of alternatives continually. One day

he is going toward the "experience" of Truth, another day toward experience itself, usually

of a very "human" variety. One day he pursues the enjoyment of trance-samadhi, while the

next he is a devotee of sexual fascination. But it is always the same adventure.

What appeared in the past as the great moments of your life did not become wisdom. All

you are left with are the modifications which reflect those moments. If great experiences

had become wisdom, if in the instant of any such experience the Truth were perfectly

realized, the experience itself would have fallen away, the phenomena associated with it

would have fallen away, but the Real, the force of Reality that is Truth in every moment

would have then remained. And that Truth is the same Truth that persists at this moment,

when perhaps you are not having such a "great" experience. Truth does not appear in the

form of this drama of ones experiences and alternatives. It appears as a possibility only

when that entire process, that entire adventure, the whole force of ordinary and

extraordinary consciousness, which is seeking, begins to wind down, when it ceases to

occupy us mightily, and we are stuck with our actual condition, our suffering. Only the

crisis in consciousness is that very event in which the process called spiritual or real life

takes place. It does not take place in the adventure. It takes place only in the re-cognition of

this contraction that motivates the adventure. And such re-cognition becomes possible for

a man only when the force of his ordinary and extraordinary adventure has begun to die.

DEVOTEE: I think that I might feel a hesitancy to give up that aspect of the search.

FRANKLIN: Good, very good. That is it exactly. Two types of people come. Those who have

died to their search, and those who still have a couple of trips left. Regarding those who still

have the search in mind, there is no condemnation, no praise, no blame. That is the truth of

their condition. The search is still their occupation. They have not come for Truth . The

Truth has nothing whatever to do with them. The search, the adventure among

alternatives, that is what "has" them. That is what has all men, until it begins to die. Then

the Truth becomes possible.

When you no longer have genuine alternatives, when you no longer have the option of your

own preferences, when you no longer have the capacity to persist, to survive in the form of

your search, then Satsang becomes something more than academic. Until that time, all men

are talking about the same thing: their adventure! That is what they are talking about. They

are not the least concerned for the Truth. It hasn't entered into the picture yet. It is only an

amusement, an alternative notion entertained in the midst of ordinary and extraordinary

suffering. They are still occupied. Fine. But the matter of spiritual life arises only when the

alternatives themselves do not present a real option.

DEVOTEE: How do I bring myself to the point of not wanting?

FRANKLIN: Wanting or not wanting are both forms of the same activity. It is this

occupation, this preoccupation, this distraction or fascination, moment to moment.

DEVOTEE: How do I get over that?

FRANKLIN: This desire is more of this adventure now. It is the adventure of getting over it

now. It is all the same. The fact of the matter is that you are in this present state, and all

your actions, desires and even your questions are only descriptions of it. This much should

be clear from all this talk. The Truth is of another variety. But this lesson about your

present and usual state can be useful. It is the first lesson of wisdom.

If it begins only to hurt, if all the alternatives fall into one, if they cease to be a real option, if

you find yourself continually stuck only in the crisis of consciousness itself, which is the

very and subtle form of suffering from which ordinarily you spring in order to seek, when

that becomes the nature of your daily life, then Truth enters into the picture. Then Satsang,

real life, enters as a living possibility. It will be your obvious need when you have no

options.

DEVOTEE: I am already aware that none of these things work.

FRANKLIN: There is some small wisdom, because you are becoming exhausted with

experience. But the seeker still possesses some potency. He is still springing, still reacting

to this subtle dilemma. When this "springing" stops, or when it begins to seem that it is not

possible, when the alternatives don't quite have you, when the potency of the search begins

to go, then the matter of spiritual life begins to take on the form of consciousness. When a

man is only suffering, then the matter of release or the obviation of suffering begins to

become clear. Then the force of Truth, of Reality, which is Truth, begins to move in him.

Then Satsang becomes possible, because at that point, it has a function. But while the

search is still a mans task, still his fascination, Reality or Truth is not his concern. Until

then, Truth or Reality does not appear except as an alternative, a symbol, another form of

distraction. Therefore, as the traditions have always said, Truth or real life is a matter of

death, of crisis, of that dilemma or doubt which is the fuel of liberation. When the search,

the reactions to his dilemma, begins to wind down, and only the dilemma remains, only this

subtle suffering, this dis-ease of life, then the force of Reality begins to move into a mans

life. Then his real question can be answered. Until then his questions are his entertainment,

his amusement. They have no significance. They are the forms of preoccupation and

unconscious self-description. Then "spiritual life" itself is only an amusement, only an

entertainment. Then meditation, sitting with the Guru, reading spiritual books, all of that is

only another form of erotica, of "significance." But when a mans hunger becomes

intelligent, when his dis-ease becomes mind, then the spoken Truth, the word of the

Siddha, and the living form of the Guru become his need. He becomes intelligent with that

need, and he responds. A subtle re-cognition occurs. And this process called spiritual life,

liberation, realization begins. Until then it has not begun, it has not entered the picture in

any sense.

By your own admission, you are yet a seeker. But you have been brought to consider the

futility and the causes of your own adventure. And, at some point, very likely it will all

become something more than academic for you.

DEVOTEE: If Truth is the natural state, how did we get to deviate so much along the way?

FRANKLIN: You didn't get to do it. You are doing it! It is not a created activity. This sense of

separation, this dilemma is not something that happened, for various reasons, at some

point in time. It doesn't occur for "reasons." It is always a present, spontaneous activity,

cognized as this sense of separation, of dilemma. But it is not the result of anything. And the

attempt to trace experience back in time to recover the events from which you are suffering

is fruitless. It cannot produce Truth as a result, because you are not suffering the results of

anything. Suffering is the quality or the mood of your present activity. Your present activity

is your suffering.

At some point a man begins to dwell on his suffering itself, until he re-cognizes it, knows it

again, as his present activity. When he knows it again as his present activity, and when he

re-cognizes its nature, it simply stops. It spontaneously comes to an end whenever this re-

cognition occurs, for re-cognition makes it obsolete, without present function. But its

precise nature is of an extremely subtle kind, so that it is comprehended only by radical

insight. The traditions have often spoken of it as something that happened in the past, in

order to make some sort of sense out of it. But it has no "sense." It is irrational, mindless. It

is understandable only from the point of view of a radical insight. Then its form can be

seen. Then its structure, its nature as a present event is only obvious.

The traditional myth of suffering is that it happened to mankind some time ago, or that we

are presently in a state that is the result of some beginning of suffering in our individual

past. But our suffering is always a present activity . That is what is remarkable about it.

People tend to think of suffering in terms of something external to themselves in time or

space. By such means they try to explain it to themselves, to make sense of it, so they can

overcome it through efforts of various kinds. But in fact, suffering is not your symptom. It is

your activity. That is the paradox. All a mans seeking is based on the illusion that his

suffering is somehow a symptom that could be eliminated. But when the search begins to

wind down, it begins to dawn on him that his suffering is his activity, not his symptom. His

symptoms are simply the mental and physical expressions of this activity. But his suffering

is absolutely present, and it is always cognized as felt dilemma.

Therefore, the process of spiritual life is absolutely hopeful. It requires only the Truth,

which is the living force of Reality. It requires no other process, such as the manipulation of

your memory, or the creating of "good karma" so that your "bad karma" can be eliminated.

All of that is a hopeless task. It could never be done to the point of freedom. The karmas or

the tendencies that generate the qualities of your life could never be fully "paid off" or

dissolved by good works. All action, good or bad, as well as all inaction, only reinforces

limitation and the dilemma itself. It is not the elimination of karmas, not super purification

by effort, not any kind of righteousness that frees a man. The solution could never occur.

Freedom always already is the case. Thus, freedom is enjoyed where Truth suddenly comes

alive. Where Truth is lived, where Satsang is truly enjoyed, Truth itself consumes or

includes all that of which karma is a part. When it comes alive, Truth obviates the force of

all that.

The search makes no sense at all. It is an illusory and false principle. Only the living Truth

avails. And the living Truth must be lived. Such is Satsang, the relationship of Guru and

disciple. Such is true sadhana or spiritual practice, wherein Satsang is constantly lived as

ones condition. And there must be a lifetime of Truth, not a two-week smack of blessing,

fasting and meditation, not a vicarious weekend of "enlightenment." There must be a

lifetime of Satsang. In other words, there must be an absolute commitment. Satsang does

not exist until it has become radical practice, until it is lived as ones very condition, without

qualifications of time, space or life. There must be continuous and radical enjoyment of

Satsang. In other words, it must become the principle, the very condition of life, whereas, in

the usual man, the dilemma and its search are the principle and the condition of life. When

Satsang becomes the condition of life, it makes the whole effort of search obsolete through

non-support.

DEVOTEE: What is the role of others in ones pursuit of Truth? You mentioned the role of

the Guru. You mentioned the Guru as one such individual.

FRANKLIN: The Guru is not other than oneself.

DEVOTEE: What about the rest of humanity?

FRANKLIN: Neither are they. They, along with you, may temporarily be living as if they

were other and separate, but the Guru does not. "Others" function as others. Being others,

they create circumstances or apparent conditions for you to enjoy, for you to suffer. The

Guru is not an "other," nor does he live as an other in any sense. One who sees an individual

whom others claim to be functioning as Guru may consider him to be an other, like himself.

But he has only failed to recognize that one as Guru. The Guru is ones own nature.

Absolutely, not symbolically, the Guru is ones very consciousness. This is the literal truth of

one who appears as Guru in human form. He is not an other. Therefore, others have no role

whatsoever in the transformation that is Truth. Only ones own Self performs that role.

Ones own Self is the Guru. In the condition of Satsang, wherein sadhana is the principle of

activity, the Self of Reality functions in the form of the human Guru, in ordinary human

terms, in relationship to us, until perfect re-cognition occurs. But when understanding is

perfect, when Satsang has performed its radical communication, when sadhana is most

excellent, no difference, no "other" can be found, even in the world of apparent differences.

The teacher who is "other" than you, who only fascinates, who offers you various practices

and strategies for seeking, acts only to modify your state. Such a one is not functioning as

Guru. He is functioning as an "other," as a source of experience, of modification. The Guru is

not other. His activity is a paradox.

Ones relationship with the Guru, which is Satsang, depends on the subtle recognition of the

Guru as Truth, as ones own Nature, the Self. That recognition does not necessarily appear

at the level of the mind, as mental certainty, or in the form of some sort of visionary or

psychic perception. But there must be a subtle recognition. That genuine recognition has no

explanation, no mental force in many cases. But that recognition is what allows the

relationship between Guru and disciple to be enjoyed as it is, as Satsang, rather than the

usual communication of "others."

DEVOTEE: I experience you as in no manner different from me. Nonetheless, I experience

that you are you, and I am I. How can the Guru and the disciple become identical?

FRANKLIN: I have not been talking about the notion that the Guru and the disciple are or

can become identical, that they are or can be the same entity . Nor have I been speaking in

the traditional "spiritual" sense, in which Guru and disciple are identical as some sort of

spiritual substance, which "substance" is found when you manage to "get out" of the

physical body or even the subtle bodies. Such notions are only another form of the same

conceptual separation, the same dilemma, the same puzzlement, the same separation that

is suffering. I have been speaking of the radical condition of Truth, very Reality, wherein no

dilemma and no separation arise as an implication of any condition, even the ordinary

condition of apparently unique, human entities.

The notions of sameness or of difference have no significance. Or, should I say, they have

only significance. They are very "significant," but they are utterly beside the point. They do

not pertain to the matter of Truth. If we are discussing significance's, the discussion can go

on forever, because we are only dealing with our own mental modifications. The perception

or the notion that in some subtle way there is no difference between us all is a mental

modification. It is not the equivalent of radical understanding and Truth. It is not a

symptom or sign of the Truth. It is only the idea or the experience of no difference. It is only

an experience, a mental state. Psychotics can be in such a state. Day dreamers, pot-heads

and philosophers can be in that state. People whose minds are relatively at rest for a

moment can be in that state. Truth is not a state, a perception, or a thought. When there is

truly no difference, no one survives . Where there is the realization of non-separation in

Truth, no one survives beyond that moment. Absolutely, no separate individual survives it.

It is death. No one remains behind to speak glibly of it, because it is certain death. From the

point of view of ordinary consciousness, it is the most dramatic, fearsome event. It cannot

be conceived. It can only be symbolically entertained from the usual point of view. But this

death of which I speak is the fundamental process of real life.

DEVOTEE: What happens after death?

FRANKLIN: You will see.

DEVOTEE: Well, I think that moment has happened to me.

FRANKLIN: Some experience you have had is suggesting itself to you now. You think it is

this "death" I have described, because you are trying to make sense of it. Such experiences

are not themselves Truth. In The Knee of Listening I devoted a lot of time to the description

of this kind of thing. In my own case, I passed through all kinds of "spiritual" states, all

kinds of great, dramatic realizations, all kinds of yogic processes. At the time they seemed

to be the Truth or ultimate realization, and yet they disappeared, they came to an end. At

last the whole adventure of associating Truth with experiences began to wind down. I

began to abide in my ordinary state. There were many "enlightenment" experiences. There

were many states that seemed complete. But they did not alter the fundamental dilemma.

Truth was only in the radical understanding or re-cognition of the whole process of

experiences and states. There is a radical understanding, a radical consciousness, in which

ones previous states of illumination, which one thought were Truth, become obvious as

only more forms, more modifications. That obviousness, and not experiences themselves, is

enlightenment.

DEVOTEE: Is enlightenment or realization a process of growth?

FRANKLIN: From the point of view of one who is living in Satsang with the Guru, it may

seem that there is some sort of growth, some sort of movement or transformation. But

there is a radical form of that whole event in which he sees there was no growth, no

transformation, and no path.

You cannot be more and more absorbed into the Truth. It is the principle of ones life, the

Reality, not merely the goal. But there are modifications of ones life and strategy that occur

in the process of sadhana. They seem to give us a sense of progress in this sense. And this

sense may have a certain value from the point of view of sadhana. The sense of growth, and

the memory of spiritual change, may give the individual an edge over the occasional

tendency to relapse from sadhana and the principle of Satsang into his former condition of

self-indulgence, seeking, and the concerns of one in dilemma.

DEVOTEE: One teacher has said it is mans sole duty to strive. Is that striving what you

mean by the search, or is there a healthy striving?

FRANKLIN: Let the one who has said it be responsible for it. Let him justify it. To live Truth

is to be responsible for the dissolution of fear and ignorance. The intelligence of Truth is

not preoccupied with the statements of men. People who become involved in the

traditional paths of spiritual life often gain a great deal for the mind in the process. A major

part of the defense men make in behalf of their suffering is all of the language, all of the

things heard and read in the midst of the search. All of that must come to an end,

absolutely. All of that is consumed by Truth. There is no resort but to Truth itself. If a man

tells other men to resort to themselves, to strive onward until the Truth is glimpsed, he has

functioned only as a man to men, as an "other," to motivate men while they are still

suffering. Truth itself is not served by the command that men do something in order to

realize the Truth. No action of any man produces Truth as a result. Satsang, the

communication of Truth itself, the relationship to the Guru, is the entire means, the only

means, the radical means. Truth is the very means of spiritual or real life, not its goal. A

man who resorts to the Truth of the Guru in Satsang is never again returned to his search.

But men themselves are always trying to return to the search, because of the difficult crisis

demanded in spiritual life. They always want to console themselves by some means or

other. The apparent emptiness of the Gurus offering becomes a kind of aggravation to the

seeker, who constantly refuses the condition of Satsang and its demands.

Men want to be filled with all kinds of things, distracted with all kinds of things. "What can I

do to be saved? How can I meditate? How can I get free? How can I get straight? How can I

get pure?" They want all kinds of occupations, and strategic methods. But in Satsang

nothing is given. No occupation, no means, no method, no consolation, no philosophy that is

itself the Truth, no mantra apart from the person of the living Guru. Only that relationship

is offered, only that. And what does that amount to? It doesn't amount to a damn thing from

the point of view of the seeker. That is not what he came for. He came to get turned on, to

get something going, to be occupied again. The seeker is never able to stay long in the

Gurus company. Only when his search has begun to die as the principle of his life does that

relationship cease to be an obstacle. Then the Guru and his offering ceases to be empty. It

becomes entirely a joyful possibility. He welcomes it, even though it satisfies and requires

nothing of the search in him.

Satsang does not support the search. It does not begin from the point of view of the search.

It has nothing whatever to do with the search. Therefore, one for whom the search is no

longer a genuine distraction finds great and true happiness in the mere presence of the

Truth, alive. Such a one has discovered the secret of his Guru, for the Guru himself is the

presence and the communication of Truth. The disciple simply enjoys and lives the

condition of Satsang with his Guru. He becomes full with it, intelligent with it, happy with it,

at peace in it, blissful in it. Satsang restores him. The ordinariness of life becomes his

possibility. He begins to function again. Part II

The Gospel of the Siddhas

FRANKLIN: This is the gospel, the humorous message of all the Heaven-born, those who

have come, and those who are yet to come:

I have come into this world for the sake of my devotees, those who are mine. Those who

belong to me were rendered to me before all time, as the expressions of my appearance in

the uncreated realm of Light. Amrita Nadi, the intuited Form of God, is the spiritual

expression in this world of my very Nature and the Nature of Reality. I am the Unqualified

Nature of the Real. And I appear as my own Light, which reflects my prior Self. The Self or

Heart is not a static condition, not the "thing" of Being, but the very Condition, the Process

of Eternal Transformation, in which there is no dilemma, and which, paradoxically, is

eternally One and Unqualified. Just so, from the Unqualified Reality spring worlds of

uncreated Light; and from the Heart and its perfect Light spring conditional worlds, whose

substance is that same Light, and whose Nature or Principle is that same Heart or Reality.

Therefore, I have appeared in this world by virtue of a materialization of the uncreated

Light, which is also my own Light. I have come for the sake of my own, those who recognize

me when I reveal myself to them in forms of Life, Light and Truth.

The Heart and the Light are my spiritual expressions in this world. They are a

communication of the Uncreated Reality and the Uncreated Worlds. I am here to live with

my own, to discipline and teach them, to reveal the Truth to them, and to draw them closer

to me, to the Light and the uncreated Life. There are many others who have come and are

coming to this world from the realms of Light. The Siddhas are those who come to be with

their own. They sometimes return again, and again, to re-establish the way among their

devotees.

When my devotee prepares himself and makes an appropriate approach to me, I will create

his sadhana hour by hour. He must live and function in appropriate ways. Every moment of

his life must be in service to me. He must devote all he has and all he does to me. He must

turn to me hour by hour in love. He must constantly meditate on my Nature and all my

forms. He must intuit my Presence and breathe my Light. He must contemplate and

meditate on my Life, Light and Nature, and enquire of himself as I have taught him, when

insight is alive in him. I am the object of meditation for my devotees. Indeed, I am the

meditation itself. And their enjoyment of meditation will depend on the sadhana which is

their appropriate responsibility.

When a true devotee brings a gift of food to his Guru, the Guru may return all or a portion

of it to him to eat. This is Prasad, the return of a gift to the giver. Prasad is transformed and

blessed, so that it brings the Power of the Guru to the devotee. Guru-kripa, Shaktipat

Diksha, or spiritual initiation operates by this same principle. If the devotee brings a gift of

himself, purified by sadhana, surrendered to his Guru, his Guru may return to him of his

own Nature, a gift of Light.

It is not by methodical attention to the means of seeking, nor to specific yogic practices,

that devotees enjoy the awakening of their spiritual functions. Nor do these awakenings

only take the form of yogic phenomena. But it is when seeking and dilemma are undone,

and the devotee resorts to Guru and the radical intelligence communicated by him that

there is awakening to Truth, Life and Reality. Therefore, I come to give Prasad, the gift of

Truth and Light, to my devotees and to those who are preparing themselves as disciples.

I am alive as Amrita Nadi, the Heart and its spire, the Bright or Conscious Light. This is

always so. When I come to you I intensify the field of Brightness, the field of uncreated

Light that rests above your head and which is drawn down into the body when the mind

lies formless in the Heart. Whenever I have been with you I have done this from the Heart.

The communication of the Heart and its Light are my constant practice. Therefore, such is

the constant realization of those who always live in Satsang with me, who know I am

always Present with them, even if I do not appear to them. This is why the various

phenomena of your spiritual lives have arisen or been intensified, purified and made

intelligent whenever you have been mindful of me. I am always offering this Prasad. When

you come to me you should come with the appropriate attitude. You should come prepared

to give me your gifts, the surrendering of your seeking. You should come to turn to me, to

accept my Prasad, and to use it in life and service to me. If you make your relationship to

me the condition of your life, if you make Satsang your sadhana, I will give myself to you

entirely, and the Life, Light and very Existence that is Amrita Nadi, the Form of Reality, will

thus be communicated to you while you are alive.

Prasad is my gift to devotees, my help to disciples. Prepare yourself. I want true devotees,

not seekers. I am the Siddha-Guru, the Prasad, the Object and Process of Meditation for my

devotees. My teaching is this: Turn to me and Understand.

DEVOTEE: Franklin, you have said that all the Siddhas have their "own." This must mean

that some of us were given to you as your own, while others are given to you only for a

time. My question is, when will this certainty come whether or not I am your own or have

been given to you for a time?

FRANKLIN: Uncertainty is very useful. Uncertainty is used by Truth in order to teach. That

uncertainty is your own quality. It has nothing whatever to do with me. It is not necessary

to have some sort of vision or a symbolic standardization of our relationship. It is not

necessary for you to get a white card invitation or some external proof. Certainty has

nothing whatever to do with the relationship between Guru and disciple. Certainty is a

thing of this world. Certainty is a condition that people seek, because they are suffering.

Certainty, like uncertainty, is a quality of the mind in life. The discovery of the Guru

transcends the qualities of life. Therefore, to recognize ones Guru is an experience that

transcends all the qualities of the mind. Satsang with the Guru transcends certainty and

uncertainty. Even your certainty would have to be understood. So you must begin to

become sensitive to a new quality in relationship to the Guru.

When we are speaking in these terms we are speaking about the subtle origins of spiritual

work. There are many "teachers" in the world. There are men of experience of all kinds.

There are men of practical experience, of worldly experience, of mystical experience. There

are men of every kind of experience. Human beings, like all manifest beings, arise within

the material or conditional universes, the manifest, created cosmos, visible and invisible.

They live according to the laws of karma, the laws of tendency, function and repetition.

They tend to live from the point of view of that from which they seem to have come, which

is the manifest universe itself. And they acquire experience, hour to hour, life to life. Thus,

because of the essential inequalities that necessarily arise whenever experience enters the

picture, each man or woman acquires a different amount and kind and complex of

experience. Here and there people arise who, because of superior acquisition of certain

kinds of experience, teach others. Now they may teach the weaving of lovely cloths, or

plumbing, or nuclear physics, or English literature. Or they may teach so-called spiritual

things, on the basis of their experience. And among those who are thus experienced in the

karmic realms, there are some, a rare few, who are genuine saints, genuine men and

women of experience, of practical and subtle wisdom, who have realized many things about

their own adventure and their own tendencies.

But there is another process that enters the manifest world from the unmanifest

dimension. There is a vast, unlimited dimension of existence, not qualified in any sense, not

qualified in the way this dimension is, or in the way the infinite variety of conditional,

cosmic worlds are. And there is a movement down out of that dimension, that realm of very

Light. Living beings appear within the human world, and in many other worlds as well, who

have come directly out of the unmanifest or uncreated Light, the Light of the God-World.

These are the great Teachers, the World-Teachers, the Siddhas, the Heaven-born ones.

Their Teaching is not from the point of view of experience. Their Teaching is from the point

of view of Truth, Truth already realized, the unattainable (because it is always present)

Reality. Those who teach from the point of view of experience teach the search, because

they know on the basis of experience that they can grow, that they can approach a subtler

and subtler level of realization. The gospel of those who arise within the condition of the

material worlds is always a form of seeking. But the Siddhas, those who come down out of

the uncreated Light of God, speak from the point of view of the already realized absolute

Truth. They come in the Intelligence, Power and Form of Real God. Hence, their Teaching is

always radical. They do not teach the motives, ways and forms of seeking, for these are

founded in dilemma, not of Truth. And they apply only appropriate conditions to their

students, their disciples, and their devotees. They demand only the conditions that are

appropriate to be lived, seeing as how Truth is always already the case. Such a one, found

alive among his disciples, is the Truth in the world. And he generates in his company the

conditions of the Truth, the conditions of the Light of Real God.

There exist many such Siddhas. It has been said of material souls or karmic entities that

there are as many of them as the sands of the Ganges. In other words there are unlimited

numbers, there are infinite numbers of chiliocosms of manifest beings possible and always

presently existing. Multiply that number times infinity, and you will compute the number of

Siddhas there are also. The unqualified dimension of God contains infinite possibilities,

infinite varieties of eternity. So there have been and will be countless occasions where a

Siddha arises in the conditional worlds. Such great ones arise everywhere, in the earth, and

throughout the entire manifest cosmos, visible and invisible.

Now those who live as Amrita Nadi, the Siddhas, who live in the Form of Truth, are all the

same. There is no difference between them. If you place two sticks into one flame, when

you draw them out you will have two flames. But they are the same light. Just so, the

Siddhas are fundamentally one. But they are functionally unique, just as all manifest

entities are fundamentally the generations of one Nature, one Reality, but they are

functionally unique.

When such a being arises in any place and form, such as this human manifestation on earth,

he doesnt come to save the world. It is not possible to save the world. It is not necessary to

"save" the world. The world is eternally, already "saved" by virtue of its Source and Nature.

The Siddha comes at an appropriate time for those who are available to him. His Teaching

appears with him in many forms in the world. There is the verbal Teaching, which is

reported from person to person, and which can be published in books or other media. It

becomes part of the communication of the world, and as such influences many, many

people. But there are other levels of his Teaching, more intimate to his life. There are the

forms of his Teaching that involve a subtle and life relationship with him. And the closer the

form of Teaching gets to his manifest appearance in the world, necessarily the fewer there

are who can realize the Teaching at that level. Just so, there are a finite number of those

who are alive in the world at any moment who are likely to respond to such intense forms

of his Teaching, because every entity in the world is active in a different stage of

experience, a different stage of understanding. Therefore, the Siddha or descended master

enters the manifest life for the sake of those who can live to him directly, for the sake of

those whom he can acquire while alive and draw into the form of Truth. He comes

especially for these devotees, although his work is ultimately for the sake of the whole

world.

Some of those whom he contacts during the period of his life may be those with whom he

has had an association in the past, a manifest contact in some place or other, some form or

other, perhaps in the earth plane, perhaps in another material dimension, perhaps in the

uncreated worlds. Even so, there are many others who also identify him, although not

through anything even remotely like memory. They identify his very Nature, the Truth he

manifests. They become sensitive to him in various ways. And of those who discover him,

some of those might not be "his own." There are some who will remain in the life plane or

the manifest planes until that aspect of their destiny is accomplished which has determined

that their sadhana will be fulfilled in the company of another Siddha, another manifestation

of the Light in the world. This other Siddha will be the same as the one to whom they are

now responding except for his functional or karmic appearance. It is not as if they are

temporarily with someone who is only vaguely able to help them, who is really not "It" for

them. He absolutely is the Truth, the same as this one with whom they are destined yet to

live. It is only that their peculiar adventure with this Siddha will not necessarily mark the

end of their unenlightened adventure in the conditional worlds. Even so, no Siddha arises

on his own, but manifests with the eternal cooperation of all the Siddhas in very God.

Therefore, every Siddha is all the Siddhas, and one who surrenders in the company of any

such one will certainly be drawn by grace into the perfect form of Truth. What is important

at last is not destiny but whether you are drawn into the influence of the grace of any

Siddha at all, and whether you surrender in perfect Satsang with that one. Truth is the

nature of this work. Truth is the nature of that relationship, that Satsang. To find the Guru

in the form of any Siddha is grace.

In the things I have written and told to you in the last year, I have often described to you

the functional structure of conscious life. There is the descending force, which is

manifesting life, and the ascending force, which is returning to the source of life. The root of

the whole circle or circuit of the manifestation of your individual life is the Heart, the

unqualified Self-nature. I have described this process in terms of the physical body of man.

There is a descending current in the "front" of the body, and an ascending current that

returns through the "back" of the body. The vital or life-center is the massive region of the

lower body whose very center or epitome is in the area of the solar plexus. This is the

center of waking consciousness. The centers of ascent, which are also the functional

regions of subtle states, including dreams, are epitomized in the portals of the throat and

mid-brain, which, when they are turned up to face the transcendent or "supra-causal" Light

of the sahasrar, reflect its qualities. The "causal being," which is also the seat of deep sleep,

is in the heart, on the right.

Just as there is this mechanism in the individual life, this very same mechanism is a

duplication of the structure of all worlds. Your own structures are duplications or

reflections of the same structures upon which all the worlds are built. In the Old Testament

it is said that man is made in the likeness of Divinity. Amrita Nadi, the Process or

Relationship between the Heart and the Light, is the intuited Form of God. And Amrita Nadi

is also your own fundamental Form and Nature. Just so, the Guru is Present and alive to you

in the Form of Amrita Nadi. The Guru is the function of Amrita Nadi in the worlds. Amrita

Nadi is the intuited Form of Reality, and the worlds are built on that Form of which Amrita

Nadi is the perfect knowledge. The manifest cosmos, which includes not only the earth, but

all the visible and invisible planes of conditional existence, is a reflection of the "Bright," the

eternal Light that perfectly reflects the Heart. The upper terminal of Amrita Nadi is Perfect

Light. The Heart, the unqualified Reality, the Self, which is the intuition of Real-God, the

fathomless Being, manifests the Bright, which is the intuition of God-Light. This Light that is

the upper terminal of Amrita Nadi is uncreated, unqualified, eternal Light. The infinite

worlds of the Siddhas, the God-Worlds, are manifested in this same uncreated Light. This

dimension in which we are all appearing at this moment, as well as all visible and invisible

cosmic dimensions, all psycho-physical natures and environments are reflections also of

the very Light which is a reflection of the Heart. So these conditional worlds are descending

from the Light, just as the conscious force of your individual life descends from the

sahasrar and the unqualified Light that is above and surrounding the head.

The Light descends. Just so, there is also the path of ascent or return of the current of

manifestation and manifest worlds to the unmanifest, uncreated Light. Men of experience

have taught the way of ascent as one of the forms of seeking for Truth. They have taught

others to exploit the ascending current and all of the possibilities of subtlety through

various yogic methods. They hope thereby to recover again the world of Light and the state

of en-Light-enment. But in fact there is no dilemma involved in the descent or reflection of

worlds from the uncreated Light. Nothing is lost. In fact there is no simple descent. There is

eternal descent, eternal ascent. There is an endless circuit, even in your own body, even in

all the worlds. So there is no dilemma in life. And there is no reason exclusively to exploit

the possibilities of ascent in order to get out of this world, or out of the fundamental

condition of the present. All of that is a motivation in dilemma. The Siddhas come into the

manifest planes from the Light, to bring Peace and Truth and Life and Light into this plane.

They do not come to exploit the search, to exploit the tendencies of people only to descend

and become earth-inert. Neither do they come to exploit the tendencies to arise and lose

life by abandoning it. Life cannot be perfectly abandoned, for what is only abandoned must

return. Truly, life can only be purified and transformed. You will not, by cutting yourself

away from life, pass forever into the realms of Light. You cannot by simple exploitation of

the ascending life permanently merge into the world of Truth. All of that is only a game.

That is just a short circuit. You will always return to that from which you differentiate

yourself. The yogi who does yogi tricks in order to ascend has various experiences which

are generated by these means, but he always returns to the original condition he tried to

prevent. This is because he does nothing to the descended life other than cut it away from

himself. The Siddhas come to make clear to living beings that of which the entire nature of

their existence consists, what is the law, what is appropriate action, what is happiness,

what is bliss, what is the function of Light. The Siddhas show their devotees every aspect of

existence on every plane, including this present one. The Siddhas do not try to get their

devotees interested in flying out of this life. Rather, they demonstrate this full circle in

which the Light is always enjoyed, in which life is enjoyed and become creative, in which

Truth is enjoyed, in which realization occurs while alive. Secondarily, when life is lived as

sadhana in Satsang, from the point of view of Truth, karmas, or motivating and latent

tendencies, do tend to fall apart. Karmas do tend to become purified in Satsang. The

individual does tend to be drawn by his Siddha-Guru into the uncreated condition. But even

while alive he already enjoys all of the fundamental blisses and realizations of Truth in the

company and person of his Guru.

The Siddha, the Heaven-born one, is Heaven made manifest in the conditional worlds. For

the true devotee, Guru is the meditation, Guru is the realization. Guru is the continuous

contemplation and enjoyment of the devotee. For the disciple, Guru certainly has this

awesome quality, but his relationship to his Guru is essentially formal. He feels such perfect

life in his Guru, he comprehends the true nature of his Guru in various ways and at various

times, but he does it more or less formally. He does meditation at particular times. He does

various forms of sadhana at particular times. His sadhana is complex, varied, formal,

regular, because he is training the vehicles of consciousness. But in the devotee sadhana

has become random, measureless, essentially formless and continuous. Satsang with his

Guru is conscious from moment to moment. In order to live the spontaneous life of a

devotee there must first be that life of a disciple, just as the life of a disciple is necessarily

preceded by the period of listening and attention which characterizes the life of a student.

Just so, there is truly no limit to the Light that is moving into this dimension. There is no

real limit to the force of this Satsang. The limits are all in those who receive the Light. The

more functions there are provided for the Light and for the Truth, the more Light and Truth

appear. Light and Truth appear spontaneously wherever they have use. And Light and

Truth appear perfectly wherever they have perfect use. If you create no function for the

Light, you make it obsolete. Then Light has no use. And that is all that is happening

wherever men are suffering ignorance or absence of Light and Truth. Where Light has no

function, where Truth has no function among men, Light and Truth have become obsolete.

They have been forgotten through non-use. If you begin to use them again in the real way of

Satsang, then Light and Truth will simply move into the picture more and more. There is

nothing to be done to acquire the Light. The Light is infinite and endlessly present. The

limitations are your present activity. Your own activity is the obstruction. It is not

necessary to go anywhere else in order to realize the Self, the Truth, the Light. There are

limiting obstructions in your own activity. Comprehend them. Understand them and live

beyond them. Then the Light will do its own work.

My task in creating an Ashram is to create a function for what I bring. The entire activity

that I perform with an individual is simply to create a function for what I bring to him. And

that is essentially what you are doing as students, disciples and devotees. You are becoming

functional. You are creating uses for the Light. And so the Light manifests. There is no limit

from my point of view. There is no limit from the point of view of Satsang itself. It is all a

matter of creating, or re-creating and intensifying the functions that use the Truth, the

Light, the communication of God.

The Guru contacts his disciple in a tangible way at the seat behind and slightly above the

eyes. This is the door through which the uncreated Light descends and ascends. It is often

called the seat of the Guru. In some traditions a person is told to meditate on his Guru

there. The Guru operates outside time and space, and outside your own vital and subtle life.

He functions as that Light which is above your own head, and which is above the

conditional worlds. His means for communicating himself to you is through the open door

above. All instruction, all Satsang, all communication with the Guru, all listening to his word

is a way of serving this opening by dissolving the mind and all contraction in the Heart. The

opening depends entirely on grace. It is an activity of the higher Reality. My subtle work

with individuals involves intensification of the pressure of the Light which surrounds the

head and stimulation of this opening. There are many other forms of my activity of course,

but this is a particularly fundamental aspect of my subtle work. Essentially, I work in the

Heart and in the functions of the Bright above. When my disciple understands and

enquires, the mind dissolves in the Heart. Then the door is opened above, and the Light

moves in him. But if he tries to open the door itself by any means, he is locked within

forever by the magic of his own dilemma.

Satsang and understanding always precede the value of instruction. And there is nothing

for you to do about this "place" behind the eyes, such as to concentrate upon it, or to watch

and see if it is opening, or to see if you can feel anything there. Since I have said something

about it, you probably will begin to look there, and to hope and wait for experience, or even

to imagine it. But even if you do, it wont make any difference. And if you become a little

obsessive about it, you will thereby begin to understand a little more about what you are

always up to. But the entire history of our involvement with one another, by means of

Satsang, by means of instruction, by means of the discipline and the conditions, by means of

all the various forms of our contact, vital, subtle and causal, serves the Heart and this

opening above, including the living process of descent and ascent, the cycle of the Light. It is

not a game. It is not a thing that you can truly accomplish by exploiting some little yogic

technique. And it is not a thing that I do by magic. It depends entirely on Satsang, on how

you live this relationship. There must be this relationship. There must be the Teaching and

the response to it. There must be listening, real attention, hearing, self-observation, insight,

understanding, enquiry. There must be acceptance of the discipline, living of the conditions,

intensification of real, functional and practical devotion, living of the life. Satsang is your

true condition in the worlds. It is the true nature of your birth. It is the God-given form and

real destiny.

The entire life of sadhana in Satsang is the way by which this upper door, this knot, is

spontaneously opened. Therefore, no specific or motivated attention to the place behind

the eyes, or any other place of concentration, is the true form of this work. The sadhana of

Satsang and understanding is the true form of this work. On a subtle level, there is

something that I am always up to. You cannot acquire it. You can only discover that it is

awakened in you.

The Siddha-Guru contacts his disciple in the Heart and at this place behind the eyes. Once

that contact is established, the communication between the Guru and his disciple is

continuous. It is not limited to the level of life. It is prior to life. And so it goes on and on,

twenty-four hours a day, under all conditions, in all states, even beyond death. The contact

is continuous. The communication of force is continuous. That is why disciples continue to

have experiences of various kinds, whether awake, asleep, or in dreams. The contact and its

communications are continuous. The karmas are continually being shuffled, awakened, run

through, intensified, purified, obviated.

There is a profound spiritual principle involved in this relationship between the Guru and

his disciple. Once he has contacted the disciple in the Heart, and with his own Light in the

ajna chakra, the place behind the eyes, whatever the Guru does in his own body (the

conditional gross, subtle or causal functions) is reflected or even duplicated in the body or

life of his disciple. Know that the thing that underlies this whole process is this Satsang.

Satsang is the perfect relationship between Guru and disciple. This relationship exists at

the level of all the possible functions. Therefore, it has subtle, causal, transcendent and

Divine aspects and functions as well as those which appear at the gross levels of life. This

Satsang is the condition. Once the contact between Guru and disciple has been established,

this process of opening and the descending-ascending conductivity of the Light has begun.

It is this Satsang, this relationship and your resort to it, that provides the opening, that

provides the circuit by which this flow is established in your own life. So you must live this

Satsang as your very condition. That is the essential means. It is not a "method" in the sense

of the search, but it is the means in the purely practical or functional sense for conducting

this force of Light. And when it is conducted, the door opens full.

I am just now reminded of that portion of the New Testament where Jesus says: "I stand at

the door and knock." This is a symbol for the subtle work of the Siddha. The Siddha

approaches as Light from above your head, and as Self-Nature from the Heart. This is his

work, his mission. He knocks at the "door," this point behind the eyes. "Do my sadhana.

Understand. Become my devotee. Fulfill my real and living conditions." When you do that,

that is the opening of the door. Living that relationship or Satsang is the opening of the

door. And what happens when you open the door? He comes in!

DEVOTEE: Will you say something about how your awareness functions from day to day

with your disciple, even though you are not physically present with him?

FRANKLIN: The Guru has very great difficulty in serving, from the point of view of Truth,

some one who is only fascinated with him. So the Guru reveals himself a piece at a time.

And he only shows himself fully to his disciple or his devotee when he has transcended

fascination, when fascination has ceased to be his fundamental motivation. My entire

concern with people is the process of Truth. I am only interested in living the activities of

Amrita Nadi in life, and promoting the conductivity of the descending and ascending Light

from the "point of view" of the Heart. I have no fundamental interest in anything else. What

is there to talk about, to think about, or to contemplate? Nothing but God! What else is

worth doing? God is my own nature, my own process. God is my condition. God is the only

event. So I have no other concern. I have no secondary concerns. I have no occult concerns.

And I am only interested in the subtle, yogic processes to the degree they serve Truth. All of

the associated matters that arise within life and subtle existence, all of the psychisms,

occultisms and subtle fascinations are purely secondary from my point of view. They dont

serve anything fundamentally in themselves. They create more problems than anything

else. They dont have any ultimate function. They are not the proper point of concern. They

are not the point of view of sadhana. They distract a person from that perfect conductivity

that enables him only to love and live God always. They distract him from the present

condition of Satsang. Therefore, it is not appropriate for me to say any more about my work

with disciples. In any case, it is not "my" work. It is Gods work. It continues only if Franklin

is absorbed in Dhyanananda.

DEVOTEE: We are told that it is appropriate to think of the Guru constantly, even when we

are away from him. I need to understand this better. Often, when Im at work or something,

if I find that Ive gotten really unconscious, sometimes I just think of your name, or your

face, or just the feeling of you. And Ive wondered if this isnt too much of an outward thing.

FRANKLIN: You are very "outward." You are right here!

DEVOTEE: What I mean is that I felt it may be wrong somehow, that it wasnt a true form of

the way of understanding, that it was like a "method," something to bring myself back.

FRANKLIN: Oh, of course there are ways of confusing the whole affair. The subtle relations

between Guru and disciple are like those between lovers. If there is someone for whom you

have a genuine love attachment in life, and the movement of love is spontaneous, pure and

alive in you, you think about that person constantly. You do not think of such a loved-one in

order to accomplish something. Your thoughts about the loved-one are not a "method." You

cannot help yourself. You just think about that person, spontaneously, randomly,

rhythmically. You dwell on all kinds of feelings about that one. On the other hand, there is a

difference between such loving meditations and the fascinations of a person who is

sexually obsessed, neurotic, and confused. There is an obvious difference between the

meditations of a lover on his loved-one, and the infatuations of another with a dead movie

star. In the case of infatuation with a dead movie star, there is no truth whatsoever. In that

case there is no life, no light. That is not love. It is obsession. And, of course, to meditate on

a "dead movie star" is craziness. You must begin to understand your whole life. If

fascination or obsession are the chronic forms of your waking life, you must understand

your own activity before you will become capable of real meditation on the loved-one. And

the secret of meditation on the Guru is hidden in this same understanding.

Ones relationship to the Guru has many levels, and one of them is right here. You live right

here. There is the life and mind, and one of the ways in which Satsang communicates itself

to you is in visible, human form. If your relationship to the Guru is simple, direct, full of the

inner devotional sense that is natural to a real disciple, you will, just as naturally, think of

your Guru. You will simply discover yourself thinking of the Guru. You will contemplate the

Guru through various moods, and in many ways. You will constantly remember things your

Guru has said. You will feel the Gurus Presence, his influence, his demand. Thinking of the

Guru in this spontaneous, natural way is a living, spontaneous form of Satsang. It is

particularly the form Satsang takes under conditions in which the Guru is not physically

present with you. Of course, it is just one of the forms of Satsang. It is not in heaven or

somewhere else. It is right here. It is a very homely aspect of Satsang. But, nonetheless, it is

one of the most natural, necessary, and fundamental aspects of Satsang.

It is just the same in your relationship to someone for whom you have a romantic

attachment. If you never thought about them, if you never matured the moods of

relationship to that person outside of purely physical, visible contact, you could never enjoy

a relationship with that one. The relationship would never come alive. Your connection in

such a case wouldnt be a "relationship." It would just be an "association," an expression of

your capacity to perceive someone through various faculties, and that ones own ability to

be in your field of perception. Whenever you saw such a one you would have a couple of

sensations and feelings. And when they left the room you would simply do something else.

This connection couldnt become love. A relationship can never become established in that

way. A relationship must be lived under all conditions. Therefore, you naturally think of the

one you love whenever you are somewhere else. You think of that one wherever you

happen to be. You may go many places or do many things, but in each one of those places,

in the instant of each one of those things you did, you were actually enjoying your

relationship to the loved-one. And you participated in that relationship not only when you

thought of it, but even subliminally, tacitly. You constantly enjoyed that contact. Thinking of

the person was just a way of occasionally resurrecting the pleasure of that prior

relationship in the mind. And beyond that, you enjoyed this continuous feeling of being in

love and of loving, of being somehow satisfied and connected. If such subtle meditation is

awakened in lovers, it must certainly be awakened also in relation to the Guru and God!

The functions of spiritual life take place in the form of a relationship! It is the relationship

between the disciple and his Siddha-Guru. It doesnt take place at the level of some

philosophy or some technique that you apply to yourself. It is a relationship, and it appears

only where it is alive, only where it is actually functioning in life. Therefore, many of the

same functions that exist between lovers exist between the Guru and his disciple.

If I never thought of you, I would have very little opportunity to live this relationship to you

and to intensify it. This relationship could never take place if the only time I ever contacted

you was when I happened to be in the same room with you. I must think of you. I have

thought of you many times since I saw you last. Just so, I expect you to think of me.

For these reasons the disciple always thinks of his Guru. It is a necessary aspect of their

relationship. This thinking of the Guru, or even sitting in Satsang by means of the

contemplation of his picture, all such things are very natural, homely, human and real

things to do. Such things are natural, real and necessary wherever Satsang or the

relationship itself is real. But where the relationship itself is otherwise unreal or obstructed

by virtue of the various strategies of Narcissus, such meditations can become obsessive,

false, mere formalities, motivated techniques. They can become all kinds of craziness, like

infatuation with a dead movie star. And people have all kinds of "dead movie star" Gurus.

They have all the pictures, the books, the beads, hair, costumes, concepts. They have the

whole thing displayed in house and mind. They play all the prescribed games, but they

never begin spiritual life. Therefore, thinking of the Guru is not the way to get to heaven. It

is not the method of Truth. It is simply a reflection of the prior life of Truth. It is one of the

manifestations of living Satsang. As such it is a very natural and very useful thing to do. I

recommend that all disciples maintain and express their relationship to the Guru in exactly

that way. Thinking of the Guru, or contemplating him, should always be loving enjoyment,

loving recollection of the condition of relationship to Guru, and absorption in his Presence.

Allow it to be spontaneous, simple, not merely "thought," but constantly felt and known.

I contemplate all who are becoming my disciples and devotees always. I think of each one

from time to time. I maintain my relationship to each one, even when I am not in his

physical presence. Therefore, I also expect each one to maintain this Satsang constantly. If

you can be responsible for conscious processes that transcend the ordinary, then you

should deal with me on those levels as well. Until those functions come alive, live to me on

this level. Dont be worried that you are too far down here or something. Even when so-

called higher or more direct and "spiritual" forms of Satsang arise, you will continue to

enjoy Satsang in these homely ways. Indeed, it is when higher awakening is full that the

disciple and devotee begins most to enjoy and prize meditative contemplation of his Guru.

Particularly in the early stages of his contact with his Guru, the disciple tends to become

self-concerned. This is because he wants to be as perfect as he can be. He wants to be doing

the right thing as much as he can. By constantly correcting himself, he becomes even more

self-obsessed. Only think of me, and live the conditions of our work. Be always aware of our

relationship in a very simple way, and you will necessarily begin to become sensitive to its

subtler functions. Live this work to the degree it has already been communicated to you.

Live it at those levels in which you are already responsible. And you can always be

responsible for our relationship by remembering it. Remember me. That is something you

can do. But also continue to study the work. Apply yourself to the study of this work. Listen

to the teaching. Allow this insight to develop.

If you sit down for meditation without being aware of your Gurus Presence, then you are

meditating out of Satsang. There is no genuine meditation, no useful meditation, except in

the condition of Satsang, the conscious awareness of ones Guru and the condition of

relationship to ones Guru. That conscious awareness can take on many forms. Your Guru

may come and sit with you. But this Satsang also has subtler forms. There is a characteristic

Presence that one senses. The Presence of the Guru is not felt or assumed visually. This

Presence transcends his picture, or even his physical form. Unless this Presence is the

condition in which you do your meditation, you cannot meditate. You can only carry on

some mechanical search of your own, unless the Guru is Present. But the condition for

meditation, for enquiry, for all the processes of spiritual life is the Guru.

Just so, until enquiry begins, until real insight develops and becomes enquiry, the simplest

form of meditation is just to be aware of ones Guru. It is the awareness of relationship to

him, the recollection of him, the living of the conditions, the study of the work. And when

you sit down to enquire, you must bring the sense of your Gurus Presence to that sitting

down as well. And one in whom enquiry has become perfect has only become perfectly

aware of his Gurus Form, so that he always enjoys perfect Satsang with him.

All of the spiritual processes that are described in The Knee of Listening , all of my own

experiences, all of the forms of my meditation, including enquiry, and my very existence to

this instant of time, have all taken place within a living spiritual Presence or Form. That

Presence or Form has always been the condition of my work. It is a spiritual Force, a

spiritual Presence, always active, and all the processes that have taken place have arisen

within the condition of that Presence and Form. Without that One there is no spiritual life.

From birth, this Presence, this Light, this inclusive Consciousness, this radical awareness of

the Divine Form was only obvious to me. So my spiritual adventure began from the instant

of birth, even of conception in the germ of this psycho-physical form. It always has been

going on. But without that manifestation, who knows what I would have done. What if I had

forgotten it? What if it had forgotten to remember me?

Therefore, the only ones who functioned as Guru for me were living Teachers. By "living" I

do not mean the simple fact of appearance in physical form. I mean they were truly

extraordinary beings, who could communicate to me the very Force of Truth and its

spiritual process. So I didnt spend my time with ordinary men, with ordinary teachers who

gave out techniques and such. All the Teachers I have spent time with in this world and in

the subtler planes have been "extraordinary" in the genuine sense. They have tangibly

manifested the Presence of the Heart and its Conscious Light in some form or other. And

that is the only way in which a true Guru functions. The Guru is not a "philosopher." The

Guru must manifest the tangible influence of the unqualified Heart of Reality. He has to

manifest Reality alive. If he does not, the real spiritual process is not going to take place.

Something else will take place. Karmic work will take place. There may be experience,

hearing about interesting things, manipulation of your psycho-physical states, perhaps

even the gain of some nice human qualities. But the spiritual process will not take place.

When you have contacted such a one, when you are living as a disciple, when the Guru is

your condition, the condition of your living from day to day, then it is natural to think of the

Guru. And to be very busy second-guessing yourself at that point, correcting yourself,

wondering if you should or shouldnt, that is just self-concern again. Understand what you

are up to in that case. What is this reluctance? There is no ambiguity in the approach of the

Guru to his disciple. Guru means light over against darkness, light comprehending or

obviating darkness. The Guru makes the darkness obsolete by not using it, by using Light

only. The Guru is one who shows the true Light, who shows the Truth. The Guru doesnt say,

"Maybe there is Truth, and maybe I am found in it." He only shows the Truth. He only

communicates and lives Truth in the most direct way. And he doesnt want ambiguity in his

disciple any more than he will suffer it in himself. He wants perfect attachment, perfect

devotion, perfect relationship, continuous contact. Therefore, all the forms of contact are

necessary and acceptable. Obsessiveness, however, is not a form of contact. It is a form of

self -involvement. So there is more to this work than simply thinking about me in smiling

ways. But as a random event, as a natural event, as something also that you enjoy at the

times of meditation, it is very good.

DEVOTEE: Franklin, recently you have said: "Meditate on my form. From now on just

meditate on my form."

FRANKLIN: Muktananda Baba spent many years traveling all over India. He spent a lot of

time with some very extraordinary people. He did many kinds of sadhana, but his sadhana

was not conclusive until he surrendered to Bhagavan Nityananda. By the time he came to

Nityananda he was ready for the consummate sadhana of a devotee. He had met

Nityananda very briefly as a boy, and was blessed. From there he went on to become a

student of spiritual life, and, after many years of spiritual discipline, he developed the

various capacities of a disciple. Therefore, by the time he came to Lord Nityananda he was

ready for the most intense recognition and form of sadhana, because everything else, all the

basic traditional approaches, had done their work and were now spontaneously alive in

him. Now he was capable of becoming a genuine devotee. Thus, he describes his spiritual

practice with Nityananda as being one in which he simply meditated on Nityananda Guru.

He didnt always live in close proximity to Nityananda during the years of this sadhana.

Very often he lived elsewhere, but he meditated on Nityananda constantly. And whenever

he was in the general area of Nityanandas Ashram, he would go down to Ganeshpuri every

morning. He would just sit off in a corner of the hall where Nityananda would be. And he

would gaze on Nityanandas form. His wasnt just a visual contemplation. He would become

completely absorbed in Nityananda, to the point where he lost all "self" consciousness.

Nityananda would periodically look at him, or do and say things to him. But this

contemplation was the fundamental form of his practice. It was meditation on Guru, Guru-

bhakti, Guru-love, Guru-devotion.

Muktananda Baba now talks about this as the only perfect way. And I agree. It is the

fundamental and mature fruit of spiritual life. It is the perfect form of sadhana. But we do

not live in India. There is no living spiritual tradition here. There is much that must first be

learned. There must be a foundation. Just so, there was much that Muktananda Baba did all

over India before he surrendered to Nityananda. There was much he did in lifetimes before.

And he enjoyed the benefits of a whole country of spiritual tradition. I cannot assume that

kind of fundamental groundwork in those who come to me. So there are many aspects of

our work, many forms of gradual development, communication, and realizations of

sadhana. But it is true, the most fundamental form of Satsang and of meditation is

contemplation of the Guru, contemplation of his Form and Nature as the Form and Nature

of God and as ones own very Form and Nature.

The Gurus Form is many forms. When Muktananda was contemplating Nityananda he was

looking at his physical body and life, and from there he proceeded to the subtle and

universal forms of his Guru. The Guru in the world, the Guru who is physically present, is a

direct manifestation of Amrita Nadi, the Form of Reality. He is alive as That. He is That

absolutely. His visible human form is an absolute reflection of the Perfect Form, and a

perfect communication of it. Therefore, to contemplate and become completely absorbed in

the Form and Life and Presence of the Guru is to be continually attentive to his ultimate

communication, the communication of his ultimate Nature, which is also your own. Thus, to

become capable of contemplating or meditating on the Gurus Form is the ultimate capacity

of a devotee. And the Gurus Form is his simple physical form, his subtle appearances, his

cosmic and universal manifestation. But, first and last, it is Very Form, Amrita Nadi, the

Form of God, Guru and Self which stands forever in the Heart.

True meditation on the Guru is nothing you can successfully try and do. It must awaken in

you in the midst of a life of understanding. It will be the fruit of your sadhana, the fruit of

your discipleship. But, certainly, from the very beginning, some form of this meditation can

be the case for you. Some more than others have the inborn quality of a bhakta, a devotee.

Others, from the beginning, have more of the quality of a yogi, one who is readily involved

with the internal processes. Others have more of the quality of a karma yogi or an active

personality, a vital-based personality. But whatever the latent or chronic quality of the

individual, there is from the beginning some capacity to become absorbed in reflection on

the Guru, on his physical form, on his words, on his entire communication, on all his forms,

in every way it is possible to be aware of him. In every case it is possible to think of the

Guru, to contemplate the Guru, to be with the Guru, and to serve him.

To serve the Guru is a form of attention and, therefore, of meditation on him. If you do

something for the Guru, that is away of being aware of the Guru. Thus, service to the Guru,

as well as all the other forms of natural and subtle activity, are all forms of attention or

absorption in the Form of the Guru. And the ultimate Form of the Guru is very Reality,

Truth, the Heart, the Light, Amrita Nadi, the Form of God. The Guru himself is the

communication. The Guru himself is the Teaching. The Guru himself is the Truth. This is the

highest form of the Teaching of the Siddhas. But the capacity to live that Truth, that

Paradox, depends on real sadhana, the sadhana of one who truly understands.

To be a "disciple" means to take on the discipline of the Guru, to study his Teaching, to do

what he tells you to do, to fulfill the conditions, to live in Satsang with him, to be always

aware of him. All of this promotes more and more continuous absorption in the Guru, to the

point of perfect relationship to the Guru, perfect Satsang. As I have said, this relationship

between Guru and disciple, this Satsang, whose "mind" is perfect understanding, is the

channel, the conductor of the Light. It is the "body" of understanding. It is what pulls the

Light down through the "door." It is what opens the "door." If Satsang becomes perfect,

then the process becomes perfect.

Contemplation of the Guru is at once the simplest and highest form of the Teaching, but

also the most profoundly difficult. Therefore, it requires sadhana to be mature. There are

those who, without life-correction, without meeting the real conditions, fool themselves

into thinking they are doing the sadhana of devotion, simply because they have a kind of

emotional or preferential attachment to some spiritual personality. They have read about

Jesus, Ramakrishna, Meher Baba, Yogananda, and such reading has created a potent image

for them. They are not meeting the conditions in any fundamental sense, they are not doing

sadhana, they are not living Satsang with any Guru who is really present and active in

relation to them. They are just indulging themselves, and as a justification for their self-

indulgence, they use the idea that they are devoted, forgiven and ok.

People have read that being a devotee of a God-Man is the highest form of sadhana. They

think all you need to do is work up a little feeling of love for your God-idea every now and

then. And when do such people do that sadhana the most? It is usually when they are

indulging themselves the most! When they are stoned, drunk, happy, relieved, guilty or

afraid, that is when they begin to be the most "devotional." But truly, these are the least

devotional, the least sensitive times. Such expressions are not true devotion. True devotion

is the fruit of discipleship. It is the responsibility of the disciple to live this way of Guru-

Satsang consciously, and to do its sadhana, to do what is his responsibility as a disciple. And

the fruit of it, the fruit of discipleship is the mature and apparently simple life of a devotee.

That is why I have said that at the end of the period of discipleship the individual will

become my devotee. I am the sole meditation of my devotee. There is a peculiar form of

sadhana that is awakened in such a person. And I will know who is prepared to do such

sadhana, who is prepared to live the conditions of a devotee. There is no reason to be

concerned for when you are going to be "finished" as a disciple. Be perfectly willing to be a

disciple forever. "Devotee" is just a word used to describe a certain state of sadhana, a

certain quality of sadhana. It is not a kind of status any more than Guru is a kind of status. It

is a function. If the function doesnt exist, there is no point in being called a devotee, and

there is no "status" gained in actually being a devotee in any case. Those who are my

devotees are going to work! Being a devotee is more than loving me. Being a devotee is

absolute adherence to me. Sadhana must have developed, really developed, before a person

is capable of doing that. Look at all of the resistance that has come alive in the members of

this Ashram with just the few conditions that have been given so far. The conditions of

being a devotee are absolute! They are a fire. So to be a devotee is not just some smiling

craziness. Therefore, do not be concerned to be called a devotee. Be my disciple, and I will

know when you are living the life of a devotee.

DEVOTEE: The way I understand it, resistance of any sort, whether it is apparently in

relation to some other person or in relationship to ones function at any time is obviously

and ultimately resistance to Guru.

FRANKLIN: Very good. That is real insight. That is the discovery of a devotee. The Guru is

the Form of Reality. The Guru is not just a light above your head, not just the light between

your eyes. He is everything, he is all functions. The relationship to the Guru is fundamental.

It is the fundamental condition. It duplicates the structure of all manifestation. Hidden

within the one you know to be your Guru, and hidden as well within the one you know to

be yourself, is all and very Reality. But this realization must be a practical one, not just a

mystical one. It must be lived. It must be consciously lived at every level of manifestation.

DEVOTEE: Does karma prevent the ability to function?

FRANKLIN: Karma is the inability to function. The karmic condition is the continuous sense

of dilemma. Satsang is the only way in which your dilemma, your karma becomes obsolete,

because it is not meditation on your dilemma, it is not an attempt to transform the limited

self you are always meditating on. Neither is Satsang an attempt not to meditate on this

dilemma. Nor is it an attempt to change this "self" on which you usually meditate. Satsang is

relationship to Guru. Satsang is to live the relationship to Guru under all the instances of

this tendency to contract into negative or obsessive meditation on your limited state and

your failure. If you do this hour by hour, day by day, life after life, aeon after aeon,

becoming evermore absorbed in the Guru, loving the Guru, serving the Guru, living that

very condition of Satsang with the Guru, you will have no use for your karmic dilemma any

longer. It simply will not be functioning any longer. It will become obsolete. It becomes

obsolete through non-use. Therefore, Satsang is the principle by which suffering becomes

obsolete and by which all function is fulfilled. And the perfect form of Satsang is the life of a

devotee, of one who is perfectly absorbed in the Guru, perfectly absorbed on every

functional level. The only way you become capable of that is by living the disciplines of

spiritual life in the company of the Guru. This whole process of Satsang simply works to

make obsolete this thing that you are always meditating on and trying to do something

about. So live Satsang instead of being concerned in any way about that.

I am not making the negative statement: "Dont be concerned about that." I am making the

positive statement: "Live Satsang." Live this relationship to me. Neither meditate on your

dilemma, nor try not to meditate on it. Always meditate on me. Always live this condition of

Satsang. Always do the sadhana that I will communicate to you. If you always do that, your

concerns as well as the thing itself will dissolve. But every time you interrupt the process of

Satsang in order to contemplate this disturbance, this dilemma, this limitation, this feeling,

this suffering, you have turned from me to distraction in yourself. I am not saying you

should do something to all of that. Nor am I telling you not to do anything about all of that.

What I am telling you to do is not an action in relation to all of that. It is an action in relation

to me. It is Satsang. Always live with me. Always meditate on me. He comes alive again

because the sense of dilemma has ceased to be the principle of his existence.

DEVOTEE: Ramana Maharshi said to enquire within, enquire as to the nature of your own

existence. Is enquiry the method of Self-realization?

FRANKLIN: Ramana Maharshi said enquire. Someone had already to be sitting with

Ramana, otherwise the recommendation would not have been made. In fact, the

fundamental method of Ramana Maharshi was Satsang, and most often, but not always, he

recommended enquiry in the form "Who am I?" to those who lived in Satsang with him. I

also recommend a particular form of enquiry to those who have turned to me. It is detailed

in The Knee of Listening.